Yoholi and I were tuk-tuked over to the bus depot and caught the morning bus down to Phnom Penh. We didn't know much about where to go there but I'd been told loads of bad things about it - and to get out as quickly as possible. We arrived only knowing of one Accommodation, so we went there - Okay Guesthouse, near Riverside. It seemed friendly enough, and with sharing a room it was pretty cheap too. They also sort out Vietnam visas which was useful, but because it was Friday, this would take until Monday afternoon to do - immediately ruining our in-and-out plan for Phnom Penh! While we were discussing the visa situation with the hostel manager, we met Fran, an Irish guy who had just spent 3 months there and was biking around Asia on a Minsk. Within 5 minutes we also met Darren, who had just arrived and had the same type of motorbike, so we ended up sitting around chatting to them for while(Yoholi and I possibly not joining in on the more complex part of the discussion about motorbike parts and replacing them in Asia!), then arranged to go out later for dinner.

We wandered down the side of the Mekong and chose a restaurant at random - there were too many to make any kind of informed choice! Afterwards we headed to the night market where there were the usual stalls selling typical Cambodian items like kramas and silk scarfs and jewellery. There was also a weird "open mic" thing which involved people singing (badly generally) on a stage in the middle of the market. It seemed very popular with the locals! We tried going to the Pontoon bar on the river for some drinks but it was completely empty so in the end we bought some drinks and headed back to the Guest house instead and played cards. We then met Paddy and Gerry, who had both been learning Muay Thai in Phuket and were now travelling together around Cambodia. We all decided to pay a visit to the "Heart of Darkness" which was a notorious club that we'd heard a lot about - we had to see it for ourselves! It was full of rich Cambodians and a few ex-pats and I made friends with a local girl called Linda. It was all good fun until the boys started getting hassled by men trying to sell them prostitutes - at this point we decided it was a good time to leave and jumped straight in a tuk-tuk home...

The following morning the four of us shared a tuk-tuk for the day to head out to S-21 (Tuol Sleng) and the Killing fields. It was a pretty grim day, with S-21 being horrific and really bringing home the story about what went on during the Khmer Rouge's regime. I felt pretty ignorant about the whole thing before this, especially considering how recent it all was, but the museum made it all very real. It is all spread out through the old secondary school, with the ground floor of one of the blocks being filled with row upon row of mug shots of all the people taken prisoner and executed there - including children. Horrible. After this we headed off to the Killing fields, which weren't as openly horrific, being mainly just grassy areas with trees scattered around now. There is the central memorial which has hundreds of skulls inside, which was horrible, but the edge was taken off by the groups of American tourists having their photos taken by it - strange. It started to get quite annoying reading the boards of information, as the translations were so bad and just odd it made it hard enough for me to read - let alone Yoholi who spoke English as a second language. Around the fields there are lots of dips in the ground where they have been digging, but on the parts in between - where you walk - there are fragments of clothing half buried and Fran even stepped on a bone sticking out of the ground - which can hardly have been missed - so it made is wonder if it was put there intentionally...The whole place was just a bit weird.

After visiting these two places we headed off home, stopping at KFC on the way - totally necessary to make us improve our mood. Later on Darren, Fran and I head out again, this time staying in the Pontoon bar, where it was much busier than the previous day - but then we learnt it was a gay night! From that point I was a means of protection for them both against "lady boys"... Darren had already got to drive a tuk-tuk earlier on - something they both wanted to do - so when we finally decided we'd had enough of the gay club, Fran convinced the tuk-tuk driver to let him drive us home. Apparently they are a lot harder to steer than an actual motorbike!

Yoholi and I had a cultural day the next day and spent it going to the National Museum - more impressive from the outside than inside. The architecture was really impressive, the statues and bronze wares inside were a bit "same same" after the first room. After lunch we set off for the Royal Palace, which involved me getting changed into more clothes that covered my knees and shoulders, so I sweated my way round the different buildings and temples. Again the architecture was beautiful but I particularly liked the round bushes that were carefully pruned into their shapes. In the Silver pagoda (silver tiles on the floor) there was a Buddha statue, which was a bit strange in appearance - having seen many, many beautiful golden Buddhas - and can only be described as looking like a giant evil green jelly baby. I think it may have been the emerald one but it looked rather plastic..

Whilst we were being "cultural" the boys were off shooting guns - something we decided we could do without! When we all got back we went off again for dinner and another visit to the night market so Yoholi could by a small bag (she was being made fun of for her huge rucksack she lugged around everywhere - mainly filled with her travel pillow!) We then decided we needed an early night and head home via an ice-cream parlour.

Our last day in Phnom Penh was more waiting for our visa than because there was more we wanted to see, so we spent the morning "helping" Fran and Darren fix Darren's Minsk, which he had come off a few weeks earlier and was not sounding too healthy. Fran then went off to the airport and Darren let me have a go riding the bike - just up and down the road. I struggled with the gear changes so generally stayed in 1st, but love it all the same! In the afternoon we decided to check out lakeside which was the other area of the city where backpackers stay. We bumped into a couple of guys Darren knew from Thailand and ended up staying in an Irish bar for dinner where we met a beautiful baby girl who belonged to the couple working there. While we were there I also made friends with a Cambodian boy called Wee who was 8. He was doing the normal hard sell with his books on a couple of western girls, who he was trying to get an extra dollar out of for 3 books so he was around for quite a while. I didn't want to buy any books, but bought him a drink and he gave me a dog tag necklace he was wearing which was really sweet. We had an early bus booked down to Sihanoukville so shortly after this we headed home.