We had to get up... which was to put it mildly a struggle for me, and a challenge for Q. Perhaps we had underestimated the amount of drinks we had had the night before. I barely made it to breakfast which Q decided, probably wisely, to skip. The good thing was that we were picked up by the bus company again and taken to the agency where the 'big' bus was awaiting us. It was waiting... because it was broken down. Our early departure became later and later but they finally did manage to fix it and on our way we were. This time, not quite as luxurious, no breakfast for example, but still not quite uncomfortable. After a 7 hour journey we entered Phnom Penh just before the evening.

We both didn't quite know what to expect. It was obviously not as "grand" a city as Hong Kong or even Bangkok, but still a big city. We took a tuktuk (with intimidating amendements: netting to prevend your bag to be ripped) to our hotel, and were probably ripped off in the process even though we brought down the price by half. We were pleasantly surprised by our hotel (again), the Diamond Palace Resort & Sky Bar. Though the resort part is perhaps a little overstated and the diamond part (again) is a nice addition which adds a nice bit of grandeur. We found plenty of restaurants nearby and since we were famished and tired from our ride we decided to go for a quick bite to eat at, off all places, an italian place which actually served pretty decent pizza!

The next morning we were off exploring Phnom Penh, after sleeping in till a glorious 9:30! With a quick breakfast we took a tuktuk from the hotel to the palace, which by the time we reached it was already closed. Luckily with the National Museum close by we went there instead. Art pieces of all the whole Angkor era have been collected in this museum and they also do a pretty decent job explaining the how's and why's of the period. From the palace we took a stroll along the Mekong river, chilled a bit in the shade and due to our late breakfast decided to go to the Tuol Sleng museum. Holy s*** that was heavy! The museum starts with the pictures of the last 14 victims in the prison... not a sight to digest easily. And continues to explain what happened there and how. With rows and rows and rows of pictures of the victims never ending... we skipped lunch. For some reason we weren't really feeling it.

Instead we went back to the hotel to... I guess recover. Here we relaxed for a bit, researched where and what to do next and found a place to eat. This was to be Mok Mony, where we arrived early but had a delicious dinner with absolutely delicious lemonade drinks. Especially interesting were the coffee basted short ribs, which were good, but perhaps not great enough for repetition. Since it was still so early we did go out for drinks in the supposedly legendary FCC. While I can imagine this being THE hangout back in the day... it was decidedly empty when we arrived. We finished the day with spring rolls and a pitched of their 'custom' sangria-like drink.

Aside from Tuol Sleng the other notorious aspect of the Khmer Rouge to be found in Phnom Penh is the Choeung Ek killing fields, which is where we were headed after breakfast the next morning. The ride over however, was so dusty we needed facemasks to survive - a courtesy of the tuktuk driver. Choeung Ek is a very impressive sight with a brilliant and very well executed audio tour. Though it beggars belief when you actually hear what happened there. Back in the city we were dropped of at a travel agency so we could arrange our transport for our next leg. By then we were again hungry, somewhat a constant state of being for us, and we had an absolutely brilliant lunch at a random japanese place, Bahus. Having scored lunch and a ride to Chau Doc we were back in the hotel to enjoy the last few rays of sunshine of the surprisingly sunny afternoon.

With the dousing of the sun again came our hunger. Despite having to leave early the next morning we were determined to enjoy our last night in Cambodia... though it was probably best not to stray too far on account of our early morning ;) we ended up having dinner at The Lemon Tree in a nice little courtyard in the heart of the city. We had, amongst other things, a cheese/meat plate, with actually pretty good cheese and meats and opted for the pitcher of Sangria to help the food go down. Unfortunately, with the end of dinner also pretty much came to our stay in Cambodia... hopefully onward to more adventures in Vietnam!