Phnom Penh

 04/12/12 to 06/12/12 - The boat journey from Chau Doc was longer than we were told. We arrived near the border on the Vietnamese side where we got our Cambodian visas. After an hour we got on a second boat (speedboat) where we whistled up river to Phnom Penh. We arrived mid afternoon and as soon as we got off the boat a tuk-tuk driver asked where we were from. “England”, Dave replied, to which he said “lovely jubbly” and we knew we were no longer in Vietnam.

Remarkably it seemed, Cambodians seemed able to drive around without constantly beeping their horns.  Despite our expectations and considering its terrible history, Phnom Penh felt calm, fun and progressive. We found a cheap guesthouse with friendly hosts, had our first decent cuts of meat in months at a restaurant down the road and we explored the city by evening, seeing the impressive market building and the Royal Palace by night, where locals were lighting candles and giving flowers to pay their respects to the recently passed king in front of the palace. 

We then walked the promenade by the river and stopped off at the Motor Bar on our way home, where all the furniture was made from old car parts. We took a beer, sitting in our bucket seats and listened to the acoustic guitarist, whose songs were murdered by some girls who kept joining him on stage thinking it was karaoke. We had a chat with a friendly policeman who welcomed us to Cambodia.

In some ways it’s a shame that the tourist ‘attractions’ of Phnom Penh are all related to its horrific past. However, you have to credit the spirit of Cambodians who really want you to see what happened there. We took a tuk-tuk to Choung Ek, or the 'Killing Fields' as they are more commonly known. It's a strange feeling seeing the butterflies fly around the peaceful orchards and the lake, whilst hearing about the atrocities that took place here on our audio guides.  “Imagine 1 in every 4 people you know (friends and family) being brutally murdered”, said a survivor.  It’s a chilling thought.  To think that that this was only one of hundreds of sites of mass graves across the country was overwhelming when we saw the amount of skulls that had been unearthed here alone.

Half a day was enough to understand what happened there, and we returned to Phnom Penh to explore the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda (although we weren't allowed inside due to the king's death as his coffin was still there).

The following day we walked a short while to Tuol Sleng (alias S-21) prison. We met a Canadian/Cambodian lady who went to school there before the Khymer Rouge later turned it into a prison. She escaped to Canada in 1978, to live with her brother. The rest of her family were murdered and this was only her second visit to Cambodia.  The prison was harrowing, with thousands of pictures of those kept and tortured here, before they were sent to their deaths at the killing fields.

That afternoon we said goodbye to Phnom Penh and made our way to Siem Reap.