Capital of Cambodia

On the way in to Phnom Penh the roads took a chance for the worse, narrower and bumpier.  We have no idea to expect but were hoping things were more pleasant than the Vietnamese cities.  Initially everything seemed calmer and horn beeping on the roads is much less.  We pulled up at the bus station and were warning things get a bit hectic with tour guide and tuk tuk offers etc.  It certainly did, I grabbed my bag off the coach (last again) and we jumped on the smaller private type bus that took us to our hotel.  The best hotel room by far with the comfiest beds, smelly toilet though!

The hotel was centrally located near the national museum and royal palace complex.  Both of these buildings are the most beautiful I have ever seen.  Similar in style to the pagodas we have seen all over the place, but these have set a new bench mark for me. 

We are visiting both of them properly tomorrow.

We all went for an evening walk together which took us down the river side, lots of locals chilling out releasing birds for luck and kids playing on the streets. 

Here are some of the sights from the riverside:

Everything feels nice and calm, most people seem happy.  We get the usual offers for cheap tuk tuk rides and books etc.  Like Vietnam nothing is over the top hassle.  The evenings here are warm with a lovely fresh breeze.

We saw some bats and a monkey walking / hanging on the telephone cables, passed through the night market with FRESH fish, i.e. still flapping!  Saw people sat around a table eating duck egg embryos!  Cracking the egg open and eating it whole!!!!

We had a slightly dodgy dinner that evening, but not too bad.  It didn’t make us ill.  Anna didn’t finish her beef noodles but I did mine!  The food is always tasty, but we are still adjusting.

While eating dinner a child came up to the table and started to beg, I realised he was leaning on my pocket right over my wallet quite quickly so covered it with my hand.  The kid took our spare bananas and drinks cans for recycling.  Not quite sure how innocent the encounter was as our guide seemed to signal to an adult from the other side of the bush behind us to take the child away.

We all had a cocktail in a bar next to our hotel before turning in.  Anna and I bartered with a child selling lonely planet guide books for the Cambodia one we need down from $8 to 6$.  Could have easily got down to $4.  As a rule 50% is easily achievable when bartering, but I felt comfortable with $6 for a £15 book.  It’s clearly a copy but a really good one.  This unfortunately seems to open the flood gates though and we didn’t get any peace from sellers and beggars after that!!!

Vietnam to Cambodia – by Leigh

We are both ready to move on from the Vietnamese cities, and looking forward to Cambodia.  Today we are taking a public bus Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.  While waiting for the bus we all went for a little walk to kill a few minutes.  WE stopped for a minute before tuning back only to realise a local was standing right next to me who first slowly looked me up and down, then did the same to Julian!  She was particularly paying attention to our ‘Buddha’ bellies, very strange!  We had to walk off as she was freaking us out.

We had no idea what ‘public bus’ means, its a 7 hour journey so were really glad to see it was a big comfortable air conditioned coach with onboard toilet etc, phew!  We managed to get the very front seats for a great view so even better.  After a few hours of similar Vietnamese craziness' happening outside we reached the boarder.  This was a strange crossing.  We were required to take our bags off the coach although they were not checked.  The coach crew already had everybody's passports on the coach and had been busy filling out forms on our behalf earlier in the journey.  They handed the passports over to the authorities for stamping etc then called out the name of the passport holder who had to go forwards get their passport and go through to get it checked.  Just like the earlier baggage claim, Anna's was early and mine came late, I was just starting to get worried!  Zak’s actually came last out of the whole group!  The Cambodian boarder was far more relaxed and a taste of things to come.  Although they did take our temperature with a ‘gun’ by shooting it at our heads to check for swine flu. This was slightly concerning since we had no idea that's what they were doing.

I was instantly impressed with the Cambodian buildings on the border and gave a sample of what we’d be seeing later.  Toilets have gone down in quality considerably though and now tap water is going to make us ill.  Cambodia is the poorest country in south east Asia.

Temperature is now into the 30’s and the chills of north Vietnam are becoming a distant memory!

Looking out of the window in Cambodia things have changed dramatically.  There are not so many people, everything is generally green, as opposed to dusty, and every now and then you amongst the shacks you see a stunning pagoda temple.  The road is also smooth and straight.

On route we had to cross the Mekong river by ferry boat.  Their is a town and market at the crossing point, selling the usual local birds on bbq, insects and fruit.

We planned how we would smash the window if she sank, luckily we didn’t need to action this plan.

Some other sights on the final leg into Phnom Penh