Phnom Penned

Busy.
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Excerpt from Becks' diary:

An early bus to Phnom Penh, past the large market on the outskirts of Siem Reap. After two hours of the four hour journey we pull up in a small town next to some street stalls, a couple are selling a particular local delicacy; deep fried tarrantula, cockroach and locust. They look foul close up and the adventurous spirit you feel watching this sort of stuff on tv evapourates. Maybe another time, I tell myself.

Approach to Phnom Penh is as expected. This is a low rise city, in fact it turns out most smart offices are in previously aristocratic mansions in the south of town. First impressions are of a dusty place where everything happens at street level. We find a guesthouse with a decent room on the sixth floor with a small fenced in balcony, reached through many narrow staircases winding through the various levels.

Where lunch comes from.
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Most of the action, from a tourist's perspective, happens down at the riverside and we end up at a Khmer restaurant there for the first night. Good, but not as good as many Khmer meals to come.

First day in Phnom Penh and we decide to get Laotion visas sorted. We plan to cross from Cambodia to Lao and the only border is not officially open to foreigners.

After dropping off our passports we head to Tuong Steng, the old Khmer Rouge prison, torture chamber and final destination for all of its captives. It is now a "genocide museum". The unchanged nature of the place brings home just how recently this all happened, the iron bedframes are in the same places they were when prisoners were shackled to them. On the wall in each room is a photo of how each one was found when the Vietnamese re-entered Phnom Penh, the bloodied bodies stretched out on bare metal. Looking at photos of some of those who met their end here, as well as hearing about how it all happened, is just as moving as it is gruesome. It's not a place you want to hang around.

The Olympic Stadium... some wishful thinking.
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Following day we decide to try out a local bakery, they're big into their baguette round here. Then we check out the central market, a big art deco cross, but more goes on outside the enclosure than within. The usual, whole cows and pigs suspended from hooks in the meat section.

Day three, we decide to check out the twenty four meter "high" hill, slightly to the north of where we are, which stands above the rest of the city. Sambo the elephant is outside commanding photos and bananas from passers by. We walk up a wide boulevard to the railway station, used by passengers only for the weekly train to and from Battambang. It's strange to see such a large station locked up and deserted, freight carriages stand on the tracks outside as if they've never moved. Token mad woman in place to scare off visitors.

More Man U and Angkor beer... good stuff.
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We head back to the riverside for happy hour and dinner. The view along the river is blocked by building works  intended to create a defence system which will stop PP being flooded by any of the rivers that flow through it.  Nevertheless it remains the busiest part of town at this time of day, with a party atmosphere you wouldn't necessarily expect in this kind of place.

Next day we decide to check out the less obvious site of PP's "olympic stadium" in the south west of town, a good fourty five minutes walk from our place. Only westerners ever seem to walk anywhere in PP, locals all ride around on mopeds. We are the only ones either determined, or clueless enough, to brave the litter strewn, unlit (for there are no street lights in Cambodia) and, at times, non-existent pavements.

After following the long Sihanouk boulevard out to the west of town, we arrive at the stadium holding our breath as we enter past a stagnant pond, also doubling as a rubbish dump. The gates are supposed to be locked but someone has pushed one open just far enough to squeeze through. This place looks like it hasn't been used in a long time, football pitch is overgrown and the athletics track is gravel. Seems to be a place where teenagers come to hang out and practise dance routines to music from their mobile phones.

Dinner at the front again before we go in search of a bar for football. Find one full of "caring girls" as advertised, being perved at by leary western men. Atmosphere at an outdoor Cambodian bar nearby is much better. Caring girls replaced by beer girls (girls each wearing the uniform of an available beer - order from the one who's beer you want).

On our last day in Phnom Penh we decide to head to the Russian Market, or Psar Toul Tom Poung - stopping at the city's Paragon Mall on the way. There are only two in the whole place. It's virtually empty inside, except for a few kids clearly there for their first ever ride on an escalator.

There's a lot more going on a the Russian Market, arranged into sections by trade. Rows and rows of silk stalls selling scarfs and cushion covers, next to a sort of hardware section, full of secondhand moped parts.

On our last night we decide it's time for a drink at the FCC (Foreign Correspondents' Club), apparently as close as you come to the bar from Casablanca in these parts. Dark wood and wicker under heavy fans as you sit nursing a drink and looking out across the Tonle Sap river. Dinner at a much recommended Khmer place was great. Sitting chatting after food when a moped pulls up outside before the driver lobs a brick through the window of a neighbouring bar, loud crash and glass everywhere. A crowd soon gathers, but not before the moped has sped off along the dark street. A strange end to time in PP, which does not at all reflect the mood of the city as we have experienced it.