Phnom Penh

My pickup arrived spot-on time at 06:30, and dropped me to my bus a few kilometers away through the city, and then off I went to Phnom Penh, a journey of about 5 hours. The bus was again really comfy, and the roads were great and the countryside lush, so I arrived feeling pretty fresh.

First thing was to get money from a nearby ATM, then lunch at a nice-looking local diner place I'd passed (more lovely local food), and then a bit of a stroll to check out hotels. I settled on the last one, Tat Guesthouse, a nice cheap place that also just happened to rent bikes - a real bonus. So that evening I just strolled about the local area, and was again struck by just how clean, neat and tidy everything seems to be. The roads are in perfect condition, the streets are wide, the traffic seems relatively light and the whole region seems to be totally flat. So after another tasty curry dinner near the riverfront it was a nice leisurely stroll back to bed.

But one thing that did really annoy me was the constant approaches of the tuk-tuk drivers asking where I was going, and did I want a ride. It was the same in Siem Reap, and I had noticed in Phnom Penh particularly that nobody walks anywhere. Even though the pavements are wide and in good condition, they are just used as car parks with cars parked perpendicular to the road, and thereby making it awkward to walk along. Anyway, like in Siem Reap, an MP3 player was invaluable and Marilyn Manson at full volume was just the ticket for easily ignoring their constant pleas - and afterwards having the bicycle meant no hassle at all.

Next morning I got my bike and off I went to the famous Khmer Rouge prison, S-21. This prison was notorious during the reign of Pol Pot as it was used to interrogate and torture many thousands of Cambodians before they were moved out to the nearby Killing Fields and executed. I spent the whole morning here, as it was really quite other-worldly. There are obvious comparisons with Auschwitz, but here they have no qualms about showing lots of gruesome photos of dead bodies, which I found the most disturbing thing about the whole place.

It's incredible that the place used to be a school, and is right in the middle of a busy city, but the way they've presented everything there was very impressive, and it was really informative (although the English documentary movie they showed was a bit rubbish).

So I had lunch across the road from the 'school' in a lovely modern restaurant and sat out the usual hourly daily thunderstorm in great comfort. Then it was back on my bike and off to the national museum after riding down along the riverfront (although they are currently building something along much of the front). The museum was quite small, and was mostly just statues, bronzes and the like so I didn't linger that long. Instead I headed to the nearby Raffles Hotel to check out the restaurant and bar there.

The Elephant Bar is famous, and justly so I reckon. It has a lovely colonial feel to it, and the happy hour beer (a cool half-yard of ale) was great value, given that I got a big bowl of tasty nachos to go with it. The restaurant menu was very expensive of course, but it had lobster and so I reckoned I might give that a go the next evening when I was properly attired (I had arrived in the posh bar, ordered a beer and popped into the toilet to freshen up a bit after cycling around the city all day. It was only when I saw myself in the mirror that I realised what a total and utter knacker I looked in my ripped shorts, and totally bedraggled looking T-shirt that is full of holes. I had a right cheek swanning into such a swish hotel looking like I did - so after a wee chuckle and a shrug I felt quite proud of myself really!).

I only stayed in the Elephant Bar for one beer and then hopped back on the bike and explored the city a bit more (having the bike in Phnom Penh was really the perfect way to get about, even more so than Siem Reap).

Next day I took the bike again, and this time headed out to the Killing Fields themselves. These are about 12km from the city centre, and the guidebook said they were clearly signposted. Well, the book was wrong again, and I ended up going the wrong way and added about 20km to the ride out there (at least I got to see a lot more of the city outskirts, not that there was much to see).

But after all that extra cycling, the Killing Fields site doesn't have that much to see either. The on-site museum was small, empty and closed, and the site is really just a number of marked graves and a nice poignant pagoda that displays a large number of human skulls reclaimed from some of the graves. It was a nice peaceful place to stroll around for a bit though, and I relaxed there for a while after my overly long cycle. On the way back to the city I stopped off to use the Internet to avoid the daily rains and then after heading back to my hotel for a quick refreshing shower, I got back on the bike and explored yet more of the city's cool cafes and bars.

I didn't bother eating at the restaurant at the Raffles Hotel in the end, as the place was completely deserted and so had no atmosphere (and the last time I ate lobster in a deserted fancy restaurant it hadn't turn out so well). So instead I just went to the cool FCC bar for a couple of happy hour beers sitting on the terrace looking out over the river, and then got dinner at a cool outdoor local restaurant. Again the food was really tasty, and I really loved the nighttime atmosphere there, being the only Westerner in the place, and the whole outdoorsy-ness of sitting on a plastic stool and being right on the corner of a busy road intersection.

As with Siem Reap I was very tempted to spend another day just relaxing in Phnom Penh, but I decided to head off the next day back to Thailand and catch up with Sarah again on Koh Chang. So it was a not-so early morning stroll to the bus depot and hopping on the bus to the border, which yet again was really comfy and left spot on time.