Sightseeing in Cambodia

Boy from the boat

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We arrived in in a city called Phnom Penh(Cambodia) along with our dutch friends Maria and Johnathan, and as soon as we got off the bus we were bombarded with touts trying to bring us to guesthouses. We had previously decided that we were going to stay by the lake. So we got a taxi to the guesthouse that we chose, which only cost one dollar for a ten minute journey. This was just another sign of how less well off Cambodia was compared to Laos and Vietnam which we had seen by the houses and roads on the journey there. Around five that evening we were joined by another friend of ours called Robbie. So we all just had relaxing evening sitting by the lake with a few drinks and some food which was delicious and afterwards took a boat ride around the lake with some local kids no more than 9 or 10 years old, they were good fun and they liked eating our chocolate. We woke up not too early the next morning and booked a taxi to see the killing fields. These are fields where all the victims of the Pol Pot regime were tortured killed and burried. When we got there we hired a guide a guide which was well worth the six Dollars between us, he showed us around and explained things and told us things that we would never have derived ourselves. All in all it was a chilling story and a bit of a spooky place, but not as spooky as the torture rooms which we went to next. This was an old school which Pol Pot turned into a prison and torture rooms. After all that torture we decided we would go home and look at a film in our guesthouse. It was a toss up between "The Killing Fields" and "Ankor Man". We went with ankor man.

View of the lake

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After one more days rest in Phnom Penh we went by bus to Siem Reap where we got another guesthouse and had some dinner and hit the hay early. The next morning we got up at five am to catch the sun rise at Ankor wat which is an ancient city with lots of temples and its also one of the seven man made wonders of the world. We also got a guide here for twenty dollars, good value as he stayed with us for twelve hours. There are so many temples there and its so big that it usually takes three days to see it all, but we only had one so we just seen five of the most famous ones, one of which had the film Tomb raider filmed there. It was a long day but well worth seeing and afterwards all we wanted to do was go for a nap.

All in all Cambodia was a great place to visit, the people were very friendly, the food was great and it was not at all expencive. Our only regret is that we did not have enough time there, but we can always go back.