Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Holy cow! We're in Cambodia!

Our experience in Delhi seriously scarred us (see Baaaad Delhi). Lara and I were both freaked out that Phnom Penh would be similar to Delhi or maybe even worse. We were totally wrong. Phnom Penh is awesome!

On the way to Phnom Penh from Shanghai we met up with our friend Jen in the Hong Kong airport. Jen is a longtime follwer, first time participator in timandlaracompton.blogspot and was warmly welcomed. The flight from Shanghai to Phnom Penh was just another routine international flight and surprisingly, the visa/immigration process went really well. The three of us grabbed a tuck-tuck at the airport and went off to our hotel. 45 minutes into the 12km drive it was apparent our driver had no idea where our hotel was. We tried directing him using our Lonely Planet - Southeast Asia book. However, giving driving directions to a Cambodian cab driver who doesn't speak English, using a small map of a city which has a street numbering system going in 8 directions doesn't work too well. We thought we were close to our hotel so we just hopped out of the tuck-tuck. Turned out we weren't that close. Long story short, the 15 drive from the airport to the hotel took 2 hours.

When we got to our hotel we were greeted by the receptionist as well as an extremely talkative 25 year old British guy named Liam. Liam was biking around Cambodia with a charity group. He and his group were going out to a bar and he invited us to go with him. What the hell? We ended up being taken to a bar called Sharky's. The bar was similar to a normal American bar with some small exceptions. Beers were $2, pool was free, and there were Cambodian prostitutes everywhere. The three of us had a great time talking to the people in Liam's charity group and just experiencing the bar. As the night wore on the bar turned into Chris Hansen's dream. Chris Hansen is an anchor for Dateline and has a series called "To Catch a Predator" where he catches older men trying to have sex with underage girls. The bar became filled with middle-aged white men and much younger Asian prostitutes at their side. With the exception of their breasts, the prostitutes all looked to be over the age of 18 though. The night was fairly tame overall with nothing major to report.

For our first day in Phnom Penh we wanted to start on an upbeat note, so we headed to the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields are just that. It's an area about 10km outside of town that looks like a farm, but is actually filled with mass graves and a memorial to those who were killed. An estimated 17,000 were killed here during the Khmer Rouge regime. Some of the mass graves have been unearthed and their remains placed in a memorial stupa. Many other graves are completely untouched since they were made. The memorial stupa contains the skulls of 9000 people who were killed at this location. Seeing 9000 skulls, many of which bear the markings of how they were killed, is heart wrenching. We tagged along with a volunteer guide who told us about the Killing Field and stupa. Part of the stupa is open and our tour guide picked up two skulls to show us the bullet bole in one and the massive dent in the other that was made when that person was hit in the head with a garden hoe. Our guide toured us through the fields which still have bones and clothing littered about from the deceased. It was moving having our guide tell us how his family members were killed by the regime and the stench he remembers when he opened the graves 20 years ago.

Staying on the same note, we went to the Tuol Sleng Museum after the Killing Fields. The Tuol Sleng Museum was a high school turned detention facility that the Khmer Rouge used to torture and kill its opponents. The museum still has the wooden cells inside the buildings, each of which still has the water bowls that the prisoners used. The larger torture rooms still had the same metal cots that the prisoners would be chained to. Like the Killing Fields, the museum was heart wrenching.

Our tuck-tuck driver took us to the Independence Monument after the Tuol Sleng Museum. The monument was nothing spectacular, but it was very odd seeing a North Korean flag fly nearby in the North Korean embassy across the street. From the monument we started our city walk. First we walked to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. The Royal Palace is the home of the Cambodian King (he still lives there) and contains many beautiful pagodas and shrines. One of the pagodas is the Silver Pagoda, named after the 5000 silver tiles that are on the floor. Also in the Silver Pagoda is a 90kg gold statue of Buddha with diamonds covering it, one of which is 25 carats.

After our tour of the Palace we walked to the Foreign Correspondent Club for a drink. The Foreign Correspondent Club was the hotel used by the foreign correspondents when the country was at war. We didn't appreciate the history that much but from the third floor where we had our drinks we had a spectacular view of the Tonle Sap, Tonle Bassac, and Mekong Rivers. That will definitely be a view I'll remember for a long time.

We left the Foreign Correspondent Club to go check out the nightlife at the Boeng Kak lakeside. The Boeng Kak lakeside is a backpacker's paradise. It's filled with cheap guesthouses and bars that serve extremely cheap beer. The buildings on the lakeside are all on stilts over the lake. The bars/guesthouses on the lake have large patios with hammocks, tables, and pool tables to totally kick back. We savored some $0.75 beers and watched the sunset. Because we were so stressed out from watching the sunset we decided to get some $5 massages next door. These weren't regular massages and they weren't the irregular massages either. Our masseuses at this place were blind. The massages were really good. Too good actually, since they completely knocked us out and we decided to go crash at our hotel instead of go out.

Before we went to bed we grabbed dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. The restaurant's specialty, make your own soup. Each table has its own electric burner and you simply tell the waiter what raw ingredients you want in your soup, he brings them out, and you put it in. The soup was actually really good and we went to bed with some nice full bellies.

The next morning we got on a bus and headed to Siem Reap. I should really say how much I liked Phnom Penh. It might have a million or so people living in it, but it doesn't feel like it. The city itself is bustling but it has a great laid back feel to it. The city also felt incredibly safe. Although being white makes you stand out like a soar thumb, we were only solicited by tuck-tuck drivers and we were never bothered by anyone else. The weather was great too, 65 - 85' with clear skies and surprisingly no mosquitoes. I'll say it again, Phnom Penh is totally awesome.