Phnom Penh - Day 1

This feels like a lifetime ago now, but waaaaay back in February, we decided to make use of our TET holiday, where we had a little more than two weeks off of school. Mel's friend, Kate, was in South East Asia, and had already visited us in HCMC before doing her own trip through Vietnam, into Laos and down to Cambodia. We had arranged to meet in Phnom Penh, before doing the touristy things around Cambodia together.

The flights into Cambodia are ridiculously expensive, so our method of transport from HCMC to Phnom Penh was bus. Trusted Sinh Tourist was our bus company of choice, and boy were we happy with our decision! Unfortunately, they don't have a sleeper bus option for this trip, so we hopped into the regular, seated bus and began our journey east. The trip was the usual, terrifying experience that we have come to expect of road trips in Vietnam. What made us really appreciate our decision to travel with The Sinh Tourist was that they sorted out all of the admin at the boarder, and that made it a pretty smooth and stress-free process (friend of ours had a nightmare getting through the border as they were un-aided).

The Moc Bai border post.

Once into Cambodia, it became apparent pretty quickly just how dry, sparse and poor the country is. The roads are in even worse shape than in Vietnam, and the landscape is pretty bleak. Where in Vietnam there are quite a few farms lining the roads on the stretches between towns, Cambodia is a dust bowl. The arid landscape features a few shabby shacks on stilts and small groups of brown trees covered in a layer of dust, swept up by the wind as it travels across the empty fields.

The bus that we had caught was part of a greater, organised tour. Meaning that, once we got into Phnom Penh, we were dropped off on a random (ridiculously chaotic) sidewalk with our luggage and our next move was our own problem. This doesn't seem like such a big deal, but open up a Google tab and search for 'Cambodian alphabet' to get an idea of just how foreign a place we had landed in when we looked all around us.

Immediately we were swamped by a pack of ruthless tuk-tuk drivers, eager to take advantage of the 'fresh-off-the-boat' tourists. Throwing out ridiculous prices to take us such a short distance to our hotel. (Google Maps is such a wonderful tool to make sure you don't get ripped-off in this respect!)

Luckily we were able to keep our cool and, utilising the thick skins that we have developed from living in Vietnam, we shrugged them off before ducking into the safety of a nearby restaurant. This was a good opportunity to have some lunch, gather our thoughts and develop a plan of action to get to our hotel using the wifi in the restaurant. The air-conditioning wasn't awful either...

Eventually, we decided that we would walk to The S-21 Prison (The Tual Sleng Genocide Museum), and meet Kate there. The S-21 Prison was a horrific place in the capital city, where the Khmer Rouge converted a high school into a prison / torture / interrogation / execution centre. To say that it was an emotional experience would be a massive understatement. Being in the grounds and buildings provides you with just a hint of how tragic this country's (recent) history is. It was rough!

With access to cells still containing the remnants of torture, write-ups of personal accounts from prisoners, seeing tools and structures used to torture the prisoners and walking through rooms containing photographs of prisoners, you can't help but feel emotionally beat-up by the end of your visit to this museum. That being said, we would definitely recommend taking the time to visit it if you find yourself in Phnom Penh.

One of the rooms used to torture people.

The hanging post. 

Pictures of some of the prisoners.

1m wide cells.

It wasn't as far from the S-21 Prison to our hotel, as from where the bus dropped us off earlier in the day, so we decided to catch a tuk-tuk. We were quite keen to drop off our bags by this point. We made plans with Kate to meet up later that night and bundled into the tuk-tuk, before being shaken off to our hotel (Green Mango Hotel) in one of the thousands of rickety death-mobiles speeding through the streets of Phnom Penh.

That evening, we thought that we would walk down to the river front to see what the vibe was like down there. There are some bars and restaurants lining the street opposite the river and, a little further up the road, there's a night market. We thought that we would take a mosey through to pass some time and because - you know - it's the touristy thing to do. We were pretty underwhelmed by the selection. To be honest, from our experience, most markets in SE Asia are different variations of the same, average products.

Once we had done a loop through the night market, our tummies were beginning to rumble so we strolled along the road trying to select a suitable restaurant. We came across one which had tanks of tiny fish positioned under the tables. We soon realised that they were those fish that suck the dirt and dead skin off your feet. People pay loads to have those little critters suck on the ends of their toes, so we decided that we may as well make use of the free service while enjoying our dinner. We had mixed feelings about this decision. It feels really strange and, at certain points, almost unbearable.

After a meal interrupted by giggles and squeals (manly squeals from Ross, of course), we thought we'd walk around and try find some dessert. We found a little coffee shop and Kate and Ross got coffee slushies. By this point, we were all ready for bed so we decided to walk Kate back to her backpackers; and just as well we did!

What looked like a straight-forward walk back when looking on Google Maps, turned into the three of us getting pretty lost. Now being lost in a foreign place is scary enough. Take a minute and picture being two girls and a guy lost in the dark, dirty alleys of a Cambodian ghetto. At one point, the road we were looking for appeared to go through a gated park. We stepped through the gate and were immediately met by a scene out of a Train Spotting type nightmare. There were small groups of dodgy characters mulling around - some of which looked up as we appeared and looked like they may engage us in conversation. (No doubt it wouldn't have been a conversation about our favourite books or movies.) To top it off, Mel witnessed a guy shooting up some kind of drug. She just so happened to look in his direction as he was plunging the piston of his syringe, emptying whatever contents into his arm. Needless to say, we couldn't get out of there fast enough!

We decided to back-track a little and walk around the park. It wasn't long before we found Kate's backpackers and caught a tuk-tuk back to the safety of our own hotel. It had been a long and eventful day.

First impressions of Cambodia:

* The people are darker in colour than the Vietnamese, and don't seem to be terrified of the sun like their neighbours are.

*There is FAR more poverty in Cambodia than in Vietnam.

*The service industry in Cambodia is better than in Vietnam - the waiters/waitresses give you a menu, then leave you alone to decide what you would like to order. As opposed to in Vietnam where waiters/waitresses stand awkwardly at the edge of your table while you flip through the 78 page menu, trying to decide what you feel like.

*The people who do speak english in Cambodia speak it better than those who speak english in Vietnam.

*Phnom Penh feels less organised and more chaotic than HCMC. (We didn't think that was even possible!)

*There are far more drivers in HCMC, but they react better to the other drivers on the road than the drivers in Cambodia. (Again - a very unexpected observation coming from the worst place to drive in our lives!)