Our entrance into Cambodia at the border crossing was a much less stressful experience than lonely planet and people we met had lead us to believe – maybe we were just lucky. The only strange thing was they held a scanner type thing to our heads with a buzzy noise – we had NO idea what they were doing – James joked that maybe we had been barcoded....a joke that could easily have been a reality lol!! Thankfully we later found out that they were taking your head temperature as no sickness will be allowed in!! Strange but we survived.
We got off the bus and were swarmed with tuk tuk drivers with varying degrees of English and demands – so we picked ‘Number 8’ and it all turned out very well. He became our tuk tuk driver for the 2.5 days we were here, he spoke very good English, gave us what seemed to be a reasonable deal and was very keen to keep us happy, shaking our hands at every available opportunity and smiling the whole time!! We met some people who hadn’t been so fortunate so we were pleased with our luck! See pictures of ‘number8’ and us in his tuk tuk below!!
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| Driver in the rain! |
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| Tuk Tuk passengers! |
The first day sight seeing was a reasonably depressing and humbling day and not something I am going to elaborate on too much. We visited the killing fields and tuol sleng museum. This was a secondary school which was turned into a prison during the Pol Pot regime. The stories, pictures and evidence of the torture and killing which went on at both locations was horrific and very sad. It is certainly a large part of the history of this country so it was important to see it and understand it but it was an eerie and shocking experience. I have included a few pictures that give a rough impression, it didn’t feel right to be taking pictures of any of the graphic stuff and really it wasn’t something I wanted to have photographic memories of.
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| A selection of mass graves |
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| The size of a cell in S21 |
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| Tuol Sleng Prison |
The second day we visited the Royal Palace and the National Museum. The first was gorgeous and lots of nice pictures, the second well...that was 2 hours of my life I am never going to get back – I blame James!! I am not a museum girl at the best of times but I have been quite good here trying to learn and understand the history of the country in which we are visiting, and the ones we have been to so far have been interesting and a learning experience. This one – not so much!!!! Its the type of museum that isn’t telling a story its just filled with old stuff that has been found and preserved and put in glass cabinets haha!! James said I was like a child. Seriously though there was so many pieces of stone, rock, wood, metal, carvings, sculptures etc etc etc all in glass cabinets with little labels. Boring!! Then there was a whole section dedicated to lifesize sculptures of budda and other such gods, some with 8 arms, animal heads on human bodies, female gods etc etc!! Really they all looked kinda the same haha!!! When we eventually left (once james made sure he read EVERY single little sign and label) we went outside and our driver was sound asleep in the back of the tuk tuk – mega jealous I didn’t just stay there hahah!!!
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| Royal Palace |
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| James at the edge of the Tonle Sap which leads to the Mekong Delta |
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| My friend the lion!! |
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| Sleeping tuk tuk driver - v jealous!! |
We had some lovely meals in PP, it has a lovely Riverfront strip with lots of restaurants and bars so we headed there each night. The first night we ate in the Friends restaurant which is a charity type thing similar to Jamie Oliver style again. The food was lovely and the strawberry daiquiri was so good!! It was slightly more expensive than other restaurants but when it was going to a good cause we didn’t mind!
The second night the tuk tuk driver recommended a Khymer restaurant so we checked out some reviews online and decided to give it a try. Apart from unfortunately placing our order behind 25/30 Leonora style ‘Intrepid’ travellers meaning that the food was very slow it was very tasty and nice to eat somewhere serving local cuisine again. I tried the Kymer curry and James had a local speciality called Lok Lak.
On the final night mum and dad and lonely planet recommended the FCC restaurant (Foreign Correspondance Cambodia) so we went there. YUM!! Definately one of our best meals in Asia so good, we both went for the tasting option which gave you three tapas style dishes for a set fee, although it turned out they were not tapas size so we were well filled hehe!! I had calamari, crab cakes and king prawns, J had crab cakes, lamb koftas and tuna sashimi. We both loved it so it was a great success and a lovely final evening in Phnom Phen.
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| Yumm daquiri! |
We stayed in a really cool funky hotel called Le Biz, everything was uber modern and we really enjoyed it – a nice place to chill out after a warm day sight seeing before heading out for tea etc, and a yummy breakfast which was an added bonus!!
Next stop Siam Reap and Ankor Watt – very much looking forward to this.
4 nights left in Asia...how time flies!!
Another blog in 2/3 days to update on Siam Reap....
Until then J
xx
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| This was walking down the street on our last day!! |
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