Phnom Penh

Day 1: Up early to get the bus to Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh. Hannah is doing a similar travel route to me so we both booked on the same bus, picking us up at 7am. The journey took a few hours and we met a nice Cambodian guy on the bus (Tina), who was relieved to be getting out of Vietnam and away from the food. I had quite enjoyed the food there so it must be even better in Cambodia! We managed to get across the border pretty smoothly, which is always a relief. You never know what is going to happen on the borders out here or what charges they are going to spring, so it's always a relief when you get through without any hassle. The bus company had provided a border assistant, which we were quite pleased about.

At the border, I met an older American guy called Randy, who was also waiting to cross. We got chatting and he revealed a quite amazing story of how he had ended up in Vietnam. 7 years earlier, he had been diagnosed with a terminal disease and had visited Vietnam as part of his bucket list. While there, he ended up going to a hospital in Hoi An, where they managed to correctly diagnose what was actually wrong with him and adminster a cure. He hasn't been back to the US since. So much for western medicine I guess! Restored my faith in Asian hospitals a bit as well, considering some of the stories that Andreas had told me earlier in the trip (he's not even a qualified medical student yet but sounds like he was basically running Saigon hospital!). Pretty amazing story by Randy. Chatted to him a bit longer and he gave us some tips for Cambodia, including a place to stay in Phnom Penh.

Quick stop after the border to get some food - it was horrendous. I had ginger chicken and the chicken bits were about 95% bone. Hope it's not a sign of things to come. I didn't have the heart to tell Tina.

We arrived in the capital early afternoon and checked into the hostel Randy had recommended. Pretty nice, cheap and loads of other travellers, which is also always a bonus. Hannah and I went halves on a room to make things cheaper still. That afternoon, we went to visit the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, which are both nice and incredibly detailed. The level of detail that goes into the Temples, Pagodas and Palaces in Asia is quite staggering at times. The Palace was tucked behind a perfectly kept garden, which made it all even more scenic. Entrance ticket was a bit more than usual for this sort of thing but it was all worth seeing.

That evening, I met up with Matt, who is the son-in-law of Tony from my work. Tony had swapped our contact details (cheers mate) and Matt kindly agreed to meet me that evening for a few beers. He has lived in Phnom Penh for a number of years and gave me some good advice on places to visit and the best way of seeing Angkor Wat when I reach Siem Reap. Matt's two daughters were there too and I had a cool couple of hours hanging out with them all. He even offered me a game of golf for that upcoming saturday but sadly, I'd already made plans. Really nice guy though and I was very grateful for him taking the time to meet me. Thanks for sorting that out Big Guy (could somebody please pass this onto Tony - I don't think he can work out how to access the blog. Bless!).

I then went out for a curry in the city and it was delicious. Maybe Tina was right about Cambodian food after all!

Day 2: Took a walk around the city and along the Tonle Sap river in the morning. The main city centre is pretty small so you can walk from one end to the other in about an hour. Hot here but not as hot as I was expecting. The city is pretty nice but the hassle levels are the same as Vietnam unfortunately. Thinking of getting one of those t-shirts that says ''I don't want a Tuk-Tuk, I don't want drugs (etc) just to save my breath.

In the afternoon, I met up with Hannah and we got a Tuk-Tuk ride to the killings fields of Choeung Ek. I didn't know much about Cambodian history (apart from what Tony had told me) so I did some more research before going there. If you don't know the story of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, google will do a better job explaing it than I can. In basic terms, in 1975, Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge into Cambodia and over the next 4 years, mass genocide took place and an estimated 3 million Cambodians were killed. As the name suggests, this was one of the fields where these killings took place.

The tour around the fields took a good couple of hours and there was an excellent audio guide to take us round, stop us at the important sites and also give eyewitness accounts and history of the whole thing. I did the tour quite slowly because I wanted to take it all in. Its truly horrific and heartbreaking. The tour included stops at all the key parts of the fields, including mass graves and numerous areas where the deaths took place. There are countless items of old clothing that has been stored and one part of the field actually had teeth on the ground, which have risen up through rainfall. It's quite unbelievable and really hard to take in. When you're going round, you think it can't get any worse and then the next stop, it does. I won't go into too much detail because it's so bad.

The last stop on the tour, which needs mentioning, is a large memorial stupa that displays more than 8000 skulls of victims and their ragged clothes. There's so many skulls in there, that they have to be seperated into categories. It really has to be seen to be believed - shocking. We finished the tour and then went to the nearby museum, which displays some more historical elements. Once we had finished everything, I said to Hannah that the killing fields was the worst thing I'd ever seen and I haven't changed my mind since.

Obviously, this wasn't enjoyable in the slightest but it's something you need to do if you come out here. The audio tour is excellent and seeing the field is very humbling if at the same time, horrific viewing. There were a few people crying on the tour and I could understand why.

After a pretty quiet journey back to town and a few hours chilling, I went to meet up with my mate Gaz (Birmingham), who also now lives in Phnom Penh. I didn't know this until my trip had already started and he got in touch and we made arrangements. Spent the evening on the beers with him and having a good catch up - we worked out it had been about 7 years since we last saw each other so there was lots to catch up on. He hasn't been to the killing fields yet so I told him all about the day and that he needs to go asap. We also made some arrangements for our trip down to the beach at Sihanoukville for that coming weekend. Cool evening with him.

Day 3: After a pretty lazy morning, I went to visit another key part of Pol Pot's genocide against Cambodians - Tuol Sleng Prison (AKA S-21). Hannah had done this in addition to the killing fields yesterday (how she did both in one day, I don't know), so I went to check it out alone.

This was one of the prisons that Cambodians were detained and tortured at, before being taken to the killing fields. It used to be a high school but was converted into a prison when the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. I joined up with some other tourists and we shared a guide. This tour is pretty much as horrifying as the killing fields. It included visits to old cells, torture chambers and other key sights from its time in use. The most horrifying sight was actually a room that included masses of pictures of Khmer Rouge soldiers - so young, about 13-15 years old some of them. Hardly seem capable of the brutality that took place.

The tour guide had actually experienced Pol Pot's invasion of Cambodia herself and members of her family were killed during it. Very difficult to listen to and another pretty uncomfortable, if well done, tour. Also there was a guy called Bou Meng, who had actually survived the prison because he was a good artist, able to draw good images of Pol Pot. We all met him and I bought his book that was on sale.

Another harrowing tour but I'm glad I did it. It puts things in perspective when you see what went on. I'm also glad I did the 2 tours on seperate days because it is very heavy going and hard to take in.

After the prison, I went to check out the National Museum, which was ok. It contained hundreds of weird ancient Angkor sculptures. Some of them were pretty cool but a lot of it wasn't really my thing. I'm hoping the sculptures at Angkor Wat will be more up my street. Nice courtyard in the middle of the museum though - pretty imacculate. I then walked along the river to check out the city's main temple, Wat Phnom. Again, this is nice enough but nothing to really write home about in comparison to the MANY temples I've seen. I'm saving my temple appreciation for Angkor Wat now.

That evening I chilled out and had dinner with Jakob & Miriam, who were staying in the same guesthouse. Will be the last time I see them for a while as they are heading to an island off the coast of Sihanoukville, whereas me and Gaz are staying on the mainland. Jakob is turning 30 in February and we will both be on Koh Pha-Ngan, Thailand at the same time so I'll be hooking up with them both then to go celebrate. He reckons he's going to quit smoking then as well - I'm not convinced.

Off to bed, early start for the trip to Sihanoukville.