Phnom Penh

Day 76 - 09/08/2010 - 21:45 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Another long day journey and now we're here in Phnom Penh! We've had a fully day (and a bit) to see the place and we like it on what we've seen but again, it's completely different to anywhere else we've been thus far.

Yesterday was another early start, at half 6. The bus (or at least someone to take us to the bus) arrived at 7:15am and we were still in Saigon at 7:50am despite supposed to be leaving at half 7. If people can't turn up at the time the bus leaves, then it should leave - tough one! Nevermind, the bus journey was long enough, another 30 minutes wasn't going to hurt.

The border crossing was not as painful as others we've experienced but it felt like it as we had to haul our luggage off then back onto the bus. Luckily we only had to do this once, the Cambodians weren't bothered about seeing our luggage in the slightest! We made a stop at what I can now see (looking at a map) is Banam, to cross a river on ferry. You saw the immediate change here, a lot of children trying to get onto the coach to ask for money as well as others selling things (although the latter was not to dissimilar to Vietnam). The Cambodian people are also a lot darker skinned than the Vietnamese, which I find quite strange considering the similar locations on the planet. The town itself was very dusty too, there was a lot less of it in Vietnam, including the places we passed through!

We arrived, finally into Phnom Penh at around 14:30. We were greeted there by all the staff at the coach company who took us out to the tuk tuks, who were all staffed by people wearing company clothing. We were taken to one which was staffed by a man called Sara. He said that we could pay him what we want, which was very weird - I was used to the "20 dollars" for a 5 minute journey. Nonetheless, we got taken to the hotel, it took about 10 minutes. We'd arranged to get picked up by him tomorrow, we were sceptical on whether he'd turn up or not and gave him $5. It was way more than should be given, but it was the only note we had. He better had turn up tomorrow, we thought!

The rest of the day we spent on foot, looking around the local area. Isn't much to see near the hotel, which isn't great although there is a nice Wat (temple) just around the corner. We saw that in 5 minutes and then decided to walk to the river front which is a little more touristy. It takes about 20 minutes to walk there but we weren't too fussed about the length of it. We were however annoyed that when it's dark, there are no real street lights on the majority of roads back to our hotel. The location really isn't great. We didn't go back there this evening, merely found somewhere local so we didn't have to walk back too far in the (almost pitch black) dark.

For the rest of the day, we were taken around in Sara's tuktuk - yes he showed up. He took us to the killing fields, the genocidal memorial around 15km from Phnom Penh, and back, waiting for us in the process. That was a particularly harrowing experience too, and a lot more graphic than what we've seen thus far. The main monument contains lots of skulls, clothing and bones from the victims, then the graves that have been excavating have been marked out. We could still see the tips of bones in some of them - not nice, but it's important to realise what we've got at present in a fairly tolerant world and must not make the same mistakes of the past!

Sara then took us to Wat Phnom, a massive temple complex on a mound in the north of the city. There was an elephant walking around the area and we also saw lots of wild monkeys hanging around the area, they seemed completely used to all the humans around and were quite happy only walking mere feet away from us. Laura got very excited at seeing the monkeys, you could tell she could just have spent all day there, bless here! He then took us to the restaurants on the river front where we said enough for a day and gave him $10. He looked disappointed, and I've been worrying about it since, but have just read that between $12-15 dollars for the day is normal in Siem Reap (Cambodia) so I guess it's similar here. $10 for 3.5 hours should be more than enough. Plus the 5 from yesterday too, which really was for nothing, I can't feel too bad about it I guess!

After eating lunch (I didn't actually have anything as I've got a sore throat and wasn't hungry at the time) we headed to another temple which was shut inside, but we could still look around the complex and was really nice. We also got our bus tickets to Siem Reap sorted which we're happy about. It was $6 each for a 6 hour journey. Not bad. It also includes hotel pickup at 8am which is a nice plus. Coupled with the free pick up included with the rate at the other end, we're laughing all the way to our next hotel! Yay.

Shame this hotel isn't great though. In fact, as well as the location (which I've already mentioned isn't great) it's a bad choice all around. They are doing maintenance work here - it isn't a problem. But when they lie about the start times by over an hour and put you in a room next to the work so it sounds like the drilling is in your room. Not happy. Laura was mad and went straight downstairs to complain. The sign in reception said 9:30am, the sign on the floor said 9am. Which was it? Neither, try 7:55am. They gave us another room, on the same floor at the opposite end. Twin room only, with old furniture. Not funny. I then got involved and we both went back downstairs together. Room number 2: 4th floor. Tiny! Half the size of our original room! We were really not impressed by this time, and they actually had staff come up to the room with us, which is on the 2nd floor - it's the same size, double bed and the furniture is the same! Yay. Why the hell couldn't they just give us this one in the first place? They thought they could play the foreigners, young foreigners for fools - not this time! We are pretty active on Trip Advisor too, which is really not going to help them. Nevermind!!

Tomorrow we will see the rest of the city, hopefully with the help of Sara. He's a really nice bloke and if we do use him all day tomorrow we'll fairly give him $15- around £9.70. I sound bloody stingy saying that! We've got the Royal Palace, Independent Monument and another couple of things to see!