Cambodia, Phnom Penh: Fields of Death

Our last stop in Cambodia before entering Vietnam was Phnom Penh, and we travelled there by bus with a company called Capital Tours. We thought that we had found a great bargain in Siem Reap when we booked our bus tickets for $3.75 each (£2), as this was the cheapest bus fare that any company offered. We didn't book the tickets because of the low price; instead, we were looking for a company which dropped passengers off in Phnom Penh nearby the guesthouse in which we had booked a room.

The bus was nice enough and it looked fairly new, and with the air conditioning working at full blast in the early morning when we boarded, the bus was pretty comfortable. We thought we would be travelling in style but as the morning moved on, things took a turn for the worse. The Cambodia heat decided to turn itself up full blast and the bus driver also decided to conserve bus energy and power by turning the air conditioning down a few notches. By mid-day, we were sweltering and extremely uncomfortable.

This woman was casually eating fried beetles whilst talking to us, picking off the wings and legs before popping them into her mouth

The only thing that helped us survive the journey was the entertainment on offer, in terms of the TV that was located at the front of the bus. Music videos were playing and the sound was turned up very loudly and, in true karaoke fashion, the words to the songs which were playing were displayed on the screen. We couldn't read any of the words in Cambodian, but enjoyed seeing some very strange music videos such as a Cambodian rapper whose video featured dancing elephants (real ones) as well as Black Eyed Peas "My Humps" dubbed over in Cambodian. This last video received the best recognition from the Cambodians on the bus, as the lyrics to the song must have translated into some funny Cambodian phrases.

Phnom Penh was initially founded in the mid-14th century as a monastery by the Khmers, and it replaced Angkor Thom as the capital of Cambodia a century later. You should recognise Angkor Thom as one of the temple areas we visited outside Siem Reap in our last journal entry. Three rivers intersect in Phnom Penh, creating a vital trading hub for the country's capital: the Mekong, Tonle Sap and Bassac Rivers.

Phnom Penh is not one of the favourite places we have visited, and neither of us will be going back to the city, but it was an interesting one to visit anyway. The main reason for us visiting the city was to see The Killing Fields and also to put us closer on the map to Vietnam as we continued our travels through southeast Asia. We found the city to be quite busy, crowded and dirty, and a few days in town were enough for us before we moved on to a new place.

Despite our slightly negative remarks above, there were some good points to remember in our visit there and we will try to focus the rest of the journal entry on the positive aspects of our trip. There was a lot to see in the way of historical interest in Phnom Penh, with its Independence Monument, the Khmer Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda topping the list of beautiful sights.

Also, throughout the city, we were able to see the faded glory of aged French colonial architecture as well as many notable wats (Buddhist temples with resident monks), and we were able to dive into recent war-torn history to learn about the Khmer Rouge and S-21 prison which led to the mass murders on The Killing Fields. We walked around Phnom Penh for several hours on the days we were there, and one wat in particular was fun to visit, as it was not only beautiful but also full of many inquisitive young monks who wanted to know more about each of us.

There was one area of town near the Royal Palace which we walked through, where all of the old French colonial buildings were used as housing for monks and novices. We passed several monks outside having showers (don't worry, they always shower with clothes on), hanging out their washing, or even brushing their teeth or completing other daily chores. As we continued walking through the small neighbourhood, we were able to look in through the windows of several buildings to see novices studying or playing games. A novice, for those of you who aren't aware, is a young monk in training who has not yet been fully "ordained".

There was certainly no shortage of friendly people in Phnom Penh and since half the fun of visiting all of the places on our route has been to talk with local people and spread smiles throughout southeast Asia (the other half has obviously been to learn about various cultures and their history as well as eat some delicious food), we had fun walking around saying hello and asking people how they were doing, and answering questions they had about where we came from or what we were doing in Cambodia.

We based ourselves in Sunday Guesthouse, which was about a 20-minute walk from the sights and main area to visit in Phnom Penh. The place was really well-run with friendly staff who were more than helpful with our travel plans, both in the city and onwards. Every night, the guesthouse showed a film explaining what happened during the evil Khmer Rouge atrocities, films such as "The Killing Fields" or "S-21". We watched "The Killing Fields" the evening after we went to visit the actual location of the atrocities, and it was sad to think of all the innocent deaths in the place we had been to earlier in the day.

The S-21 prison is a more memorable place that we visited, and was one of the more gruesome sights we have seen. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is now housed where the S-21 prison was located, in a school which was converted to a prison by the Khmer Rouge. Up to 20,000 victims of the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, were tortured before being led 16km outside of Phnom Penh to Choueng Elk, otherwise known as The Killing Fields.

We visited the Tuol Sleng Museum and The Killing Fields on transport (a tuk-tuk, which you will not be surprised to know) which was organised by Sunday Guesthouse. We were accompanied by a nice English couple from Birmingham, and we nicknamed the girl "Chatty Cathy" since she spoke "at" us the entire trip. We could not get a word in edgewise, and neither could her poor boyfriend!

At The Killing Fields, we saw the mass graves where thousands of innocents were buried. In some places, clothing and bones are still present in the ground, so we had to walk very carefully. We were chilled when we saw the memorial there, which included the skulls and bones of many of the victims' skeletons which were uncovered when one of the mass graves was excavated - many of the other graves have not been excavated, hence the protruding bones in some places. The reason the skeletons are located in the memorial is in remembrance of the innocent lives that were shed, so they will not be forgotten. It is an endearing tribute but still a little bit creepy.

Many rooms in the Tuol Sleng Museum have been left as they were found, and as we walked from room to room observing the places where Pol Pot's victims were tortured and questioned, we were able to see stains on the floor where much blood was spilled. Each room in the museum had grisly photographs of people being tortured and the rooms still contained the weapons used for torture. There are also many photograph rooms where the victims' photos are displayed; we were astounded to see how many women and young children were included as prisoners.

After a full morning of witnessing much suffering and sadness, we were taken to the Russian Market in Phnom Penh, which is a myriad of stalls and small alleys full of goods to be bought. The standard of goods in the market was pretty high but we didn't end up buying anything since we made several purchases in Siem Reap's Old Market.

Those people keeping up with our journals will know that we have kept a Mexican food theme going lately. This didn't stop in Phnom Penh, and we visited a placed called "Sharky's Bar", where we had dinner our first night in the city and enjoyed some really good Tex-Mex dishes. We arrived fairly early in the evening around 5:30pm and the place was really empty. It wasn't until later that evening back at Sunday Guesthouse that we discovered Sharky's is full of old expat men trying to pick up young Cambodian women when the bar gets busy late at night, and we were very glad that we didn't have to witness that, as it would have been terrible!

Despite not knowing about the seediness of the restaurant when we were eating our dinner, we sensed something wasn't right when one of the Cambodian female bar staff kept hitting on us whilst we were eating. We were very used to this by then, since it has happened everywhere else in southeast Asia, but this woman was casually eating fried beetles whilst talking to us, picking off the wings and legs before popping them into her mouth, and we felt the whole situation was a bit strange.

On the last night in Phnom Penh, we wanted to eat at "Friends Cafe" which is highlighted in our Lonely Planet guide. We tried going there after a full day of sightseeing and internet accessing, and arrived at Friends just after 10:00pm. The staff told us that the restaurant was closed and as most other eating places seemed to be closed at that time of the night, we were very happy to stumble onto a guesthouse with "Rory's Irish Pub" attached.

We had a quick meal and hopped on motorbike taxis back to Sunday Guesthouse. There was no way we were going to walk the 20 minutes back to Sunday's, as Phnom Penh streets are very dark and unlit in the evenings, with wild dogs everywhere guarding their territories. Phnom Penh has a reputation for being unsafe after dark, and even though we did not witness any bad happenings, we didn't want to take a chance.

During our walks around Phnom Penh, we passed the central riverside area which had a pace all its own, great for wandering around and watching Cambodians hanging out with their friends and family. The most fun we had in Phnom Penh was dodging motorbikes and cars on the dusty, traffic-choked streets and alleys.

Having been introduced to a large local market in the city, we were allowed to see how a population of over 1 million people trade their goods and wares. The market was full of people and had extremely cramped alleys with hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of things from food to clothing to housewares. There was a large section of hair salons and it was strange to see women getting their hair done right in the middle of the filthy, smelly market.

Many foods and spices were hanging around the stalls and we saw a lot of raw meat which was hanging on hooks and covered with flies. There were dirty, naked children running around everywhere, playing in the litter-strewn alleys, and we were constantly reminded of the poverty in this part of the world. We were also faced with constant reminders of the Vietnam War, as we saw many beggars outside temples and sights, crippled with lost limbs and blindness from stepping on landmines.

There was also a lot of begging by many small children and we even saw one child, who was no more than five years old, carrying a two or three month old baby and begging for money. We were told not to give any money to begging children as it encourages this behaviour, and that providing them with food or water is better. Any money that needs to be given to the children is supposed to be donated through charities located in the city, whose aims are to stop people begging in the streets and to provide them with food and shelter.

Even though we only spent a week in total in Cambodia, we were ready to move on to our next country, Vietnam. We anticipated a lot was in store for us in the country, and we had special hopes to meet up with a friend of ours from London, who is also travelling in southeast Asia at the same time. Bring on Vietnam, and bring on Elaine!