Our bus to Phnom Penh was a pleasant surprise. The seats were huge, with adjustable leg rests, and acres of legroom. We were supposed to leave at 2pm and arrive at 8pm, but of course that was wrong, we were picked up a little late then dropped off at gone 10pm. Luckily Jen had arrived that afternoon, so she had a guesthouse sorted for the three of us. I somehow managed to barter for a tuk-tuk despite the fact we were miles from anywhere to stay and with no other way of getting to the centre. The room Jen had booked was recommended in LP, but it was pretty crappy, with dirty towels, windows that wouldn't close, and big ventilation holes in the walls letting all the mozzies in, so we moved on the next day. We went in search of some breakfast and somewhere else to stay and found a really nice place called Fancy Guesthouse, and after Jo was let loose on him we had a cheap room. She's got very good at bartering now, so she does most of it for the rooms!
As it was Jens birthday, we let her choose what to do. Understandably she didn't want to see the killing fields or anything like that, so we went for a 'Seeing Hands' massage done by blind people. When we came out Jo was grinning ear-to-ear with how relaxed she was, whereas Jen and I were battered and bruised. It was a good massage I got, but I think they just pick and choose what type of massage to give, and the bloke I got must have thought "I'm going to make this bloke hurt". He spent a couple of minutes with all of his weight going through his elbow into my lower back! Real pro though; left no bruises! Afterwards we went in search of cake as you always have cake on your birthday, and I never found one on mine. We walked along the river and found a bakery and picked our cakes then were told to take a seat upstairs. When we got up there, the whole place was glistening white with floor to ceiling glass along the whole frontage, and a massive sofa/cushioned platform to sit on. We had tea and coffee with our cake and sang 'Happy Birthday'. It was then decided that we'd go to the cinema that night as it was showing 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', so whilst Jen went for a little lay down (she hadn't eaten properly for a few days and was still a bit woozy and don't think the headless dog on the market we saw that morning helped) Jo and I went in search of the cinema to get tickets. To follow tradition, our map was wrong, very wrong, and although we got to walk past the palace, silver pagoda, independence monument and lots of other nice places, after an hour and over 3 miles, we discovered the cinema was definitely not where the map showed it. We then found another map which had the cinema on it again, this time only two streets from our guesthouse, so we got a tuk-tuk back to the centre and arranged for the same guy to pick us up the next day to take us to the museum, killing fields and the russian market. When we got in, Jo swapped places with Jen, and Jen and I went off in search of tickets and some grub. We found the cinema easily as well as a nice little place serving 35p beer and good food. When we returned to the cinema a little later, we discovered it was actually the English owners hard-drive rigged up to a projector, showing pirate movies and dvds, but done really well. He'd soundproofed the room, set up a proper sound system, laid out some mattresses and loads of cushions on stepped levels for seating, and only used really high quality pirate movies. He'd even shown trailers for films coming to his cinema soon, one of which was a BBC show. After the fim, the girls were tired out, so we just headed home.
The 23rd started with a bargain buffet brekkie we found on our ramblings the day before, and then a tuk-tuk to the museum, which had previously been S-21 the security prison of Khmer Rouge, and prior to that a school. It held nothing back, with pictures of the last 14 people found badly tortured and dead in the prison, and those prisoners shackles and beds still unmoved from where they were found. There were classrooms divided up into tiny 800mm x 2000mm cells, and bloody handprints on the walls. An incredibly horrific place, where in total 10,000 prisoners passed through before being sent to the killing fields, and an estimated 20,000 children were taken from and also killed. Remarkable how one mans paranoia could take things so far. There were also testimonies and statements of some of the prisoners. One is from an Australian who was held, tortured and killed. His handwritten statement states his history of birth and education and where he was captured. This was then typed up by someone else to include fictitious statements about the CIA and strange resistant sentences like "the CIA have sent me... And will never stop sending agents here". A lot of the prisoners in the latter 2 years of the Khmer Rouge rule were actually members who would be at work one day and suddenly told to report elsewhere, only to be blindfolded and chained and tortured until they admitted whatever minor fictitious crimes they were told to have committed. A very sad place, and even sadder that the heads of the regime never truly were punished, and at their ages probably never will be properly.
From one contemplative place to another, we moved onto the Killing Fields. They are about 20km out of town, and are scarily smaller in scale than I expected. The mass graves are everywhere, a lot not exhumed, but some are the size of the serving box on a tennis court, and had upwards of 600 people in them. A terrible place with one really terrible tree which I won't write about.
We went back to town and to the Russian market, which didn't seem very Russian, just lots of stalls in a maze all under one roof. Jen got a bag made of cement bags, and I got another wife-beater, then we headed back. We were all a bit quiet, and Jo was quite short and ill-tempered, so we went for dinner in a place with cheap beer and $1 tacos. A bit more perked up but not enough to go out, we booked our bus to take us to Kampot the next morning and went back home to pack.
As it was Jens birthday, we let her choose what to do. Understandably she didn't want to see the killing fields or anything like that, so we went for a 'Seeing Hands' massage done by blind people. When we came out Jo was grinning ear-to-ear with how relaxed she was, whereas Jen and I were battered and bruised. It was a good massage I got, but I think they just pick and choose what type of massage to give, and the bloke I got must have thought "I'm going to make this bloke hurt". He spent a couple of minutes with all of his weight going through his elbow into my lower back! Real pro though; left no bruises! Afterwards we went in search of cake as you always have cake on your birthday, and I never found one on mine. We walked along the river and found a bakery and picked our cakes then were told to take a seat upstairs. When we got up there, the whole place was glistening white with floor to ceiling glass along the whole frontage, and a massive sofa/cushioned platform to sit on. We had tea and coffee with our cake and sang 'Happy Birthday'. It was then decided that we'd go to the cinema that night as it was showing 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', so whilst Jen went for a little lay down (she hadn't eaten properly for a few days and was still a bit woozy and don't think the headless dog on the market we saw that morning helped) Jo and I went in search of the cinema to get tickets. To follow tradition, our map was wrong, very wrong, and although we got to walk past the palace, silver pagoda, independence monument and lots of other nice places, after an hour and over 3 miles, we discovered the cinema was definitely not where the map showed it. We then found another map which had the cinema on it again, this time only two streets from our guesthouse, so we got a tuk-tuk back to the centre and arranged for the same guy to pick us up the next day to take us to the museum, killing fields and the russian market. When we got in, Jo swapped places with Jen, and Jen and I went off in search of tickets and some grub. We found the cinema easily as well as a nice little place serving 35p beer and good food. When we returned to the cinema a little later, we discovered it was actually the English owners hard-drive rigged up to a projector, showing pirate movies and dvds, but done really well. He'd soundproofed the room, set up a proper sound system, laid out some mattresses and loads of cushions on stepped levels for seating, and only used really high quality pirate movies. He'd even shown trailers for films coming to his cinema soon, one of which was a BBC show. After the fim, the girls were tired out, so we just headed home.
The 23rd started with a bargain buffet brekkie we found on our ramblings the day before, and then a tuk-tuk to the museum, which had previously been S-21 the security prison of Khmer Rouge, and prior to that a school. It held nothing back, with pictures of the last 14 people found badly tortured and dead in the prison, and those prisoners shackles and beds still unmoved from where they were found. There were classrooms divided up into tiny 800mm x 2000mm cells, and bloody handprints on the walls. An incredibly horrific place, where in total 10,000 prisoners passed through before being sent to the killing fields, and an estimated 20,000 children were taken from and also killed. Remarkable how one mans paranoia could take things so far. There were also testimonies and statements of some of the prisoners. One is from an Australian who was held, tortured and killed. His handwritten statement states his history of birth and education and where he was captured. This was then typed up by someone else to include fictitious statements about the CIA and strange resistant sentences like "the CIA have sent me... And will never stop sending agents here". A lot of the prisoners in the latter 2 years of the Khmer Rouge rule were actually members who would be at work one day and suddenly told to report elsewhere, only to be blindfolded and chained and tortured until they admitted whatever minor fictitious crimes they were told to have committed. A very sad place, and even sadder that the heads of the regime never truly were punished, and at their ages probably never will be properly.
From one contemplative place to another, we moved onto the Killing Fields. They are about 20km out of town, and are scarily smaller in scale than I expected. The mass graves are everywhere, a lot not exhumed, but some are the size of the serving box on a tennis court, and had upwards of 600 people in them. A terrible place with one really terrible tree which I won't write about.
We went back to town and to the Russian market, which didn't seem very Russian, just lots of stalls in a maze all under one roof. Jen got a bag made of cement bags, and I got another wife-beater, then we headed back. We were all a bit quiet, and Jo was quite short and ill-tempered, so we went for dinner in a place with cheap beer and $1 tacos. A bit more perked up but not enough to go out, we booked our bus to take us to Kampot the next morning and went back home to pack.
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