As we drove into the Cambodian darkness we both reminisced about the fantastic time we had in Siem Reap and the people that we had met who would leave a lasting impression. We settled into our seats with thoughts fresh in our minds, looking forward to a sedate cruise through the empty roads on the coach as the literature had explained. How wrong we were.

Lisa had remarked on the quality of the main roads in Cambodia a number of times; they were pretty good. However, it was soon clear that once you accelerated over about 40/50mph the road felt like a mass of speed bumps as it was not flat. Something you don’t realise when you are travelling at 25mph in a tuk-tuk. To compound the effect of the bumpy road, we appeared to have Michael Schumacher behind the wheel of the coach. The upshot was that the ride was really uncomfortable, as we bounced the 5 ¼ hours to Phnom Penh. At times, it felt like the coach was actually airborne and this is not an exaggeration. The journey was broken up with a 15 minute stop at a small town at about 2:30am. There were no street lights but the road side was lit up with a number of street vendors selling food......it didn’t look too appetising. Mark jumped out to find a toilet along with a couple of others who went for a cigarette. Back on board, we continued on for another 2 ¾ hours, finally arriving in the capital city of Phnom Penh at 5:15am. As we approached, we were spellbound by the hundred or so locals doing exercises at the large roundabout. We later learned this is a common theme in the city, as we walked past a number of others stretching along the banks of the river.

Anyway, it was still pretty dark as we got off the coach but still light enough for us to be noticed by the local tuk-tuk drivers who surrounded the passengers as they were trying to retrieve their bags. We politely declined, what seemed like a hundred offers, and crossed the road to the river front. As we looked at the Tonle Sap river, famous for being the only waterway in the world that changes direction halfway through the year, a local approached us (he introduced himself as “Boom Boom”) and started to chat. He rambled on for a bit about the sunrise and the amount of luggage we were carrying (too much was the upshot) while another couple of persistent tuk-tuk drivers tried to get our business. We exited the discussion and chose to walk to our hotel, which appeared to be about ½ mile away. Around 5 minutes later, Boom Boom pulled up in a tuk-tuk and asked if we knew where we were going and offered to take us for free. We decided to jump in and glad we did as he became our tuk-tuk driver during our stay. Despite offering a free ride, we still gave him the standard US$1. We agreed for him to come back later and give us a tour of a few sites. In the meantime, we became acquainted with our new hotel for the next few days. The hotel (“The 240”) was a small boutique style accommodation with just 5-rooms. We checked in and sat in the reception/ breakfast area for a few hours as the room was not ready.

Boom Boom arrived back at the hotel at 10am (as we had agreed) and took us to a launderette as we had stacks of washing to get cleaned. He then took us to S21, which was originally a school that was converted into a prison during the reign of Pol Pot. The background behind Pol Pot was that he led the Khmer Rouge who came to power in the country in 1975. He ruled with a ruthlessness and cruelty that is difficult to comprehend and digest. Cambodia soon became one large starvation driven work camp with no place for the middle and upper classes. Pol Pot oversaw the systematic execution of anyone in Cambodia (and his/ her families) that were deemed to be educated, had a reasonable job or spoke a foreign language. Even those that wore glasses were exterminated as they were deemed to be intellectuals. In a little over three years, his regime had murdered between 2-3 million of his own people (about 30% of the population at the time).

S21, or “Tuol Sleng” to give it its full name, is a profoundly disturbing place in the middle of town, which has been left as it was at the end of the Khmer Rouge reign in 1979. Each room in block “A” of the converted school had one bed in and some shackles or other instruments that were used during the Khmer Rouge interrogations. Block “B” shows many photos of those before they were murdered while blocks “C” and “D” show smaller “prisons”, some only 3 feet by 6 feet. Many of the rooms still have blood stained tiles. The place is oppressive. The visit helped us to better understand the turbulent past of this lovely country and its wonderful people. Boom Boom then took us to The Killing Fields and the Choeung Ek memorial site where thousands were brutally murdered and dumped into mass graves. During the rainy season many of the bones still resurface from the muddy bogs. This is one of many such sites across the country. We saw a 10 minute video which explained the history of the Killing Fields and also how soldiers of the Khmer Rouge swung babies and small children by their feet against a tree until they died.

We then visited the Stupa in the middle of the site but did not want to see the tree. In essence, the Stupa is a 17 story temple housing the bones of those that have been discovered in the Killing Fields. On the first floor are clothes of the deceased, the next ten are skulls, with the remaining being other bones in the human body. This is by no means all of the bodies that are at this site as a number of graves have been left untouched. A number of people were taking photos inside the Stupa but we chose not to as it felt completely inappropriate to do so.

In the journey back from the Killing Fields, Lisa shed a tear in the tuk-tuk. It was sad to think that Boom Boom had become an orphan because his father was taken to S21 then the Killing Fields. Soon after, his Mother died of starvation. He took us to the Pagoda where he has been living for most of his life with the Monks and a number of other orphaned children (although Boom Boom and some others there are now in their thirties). Boom Boom has very little but is a very proud man and there was definitely a good karma around him. After leaving the Pagoda, we visited Wat Phnom (a monastery), which is one of the city’s defining landmarks. After stopping at a couple of monuments on the way, we arrived back in our hotel room at about 4:30pm. Having had little sleep on the coach on the way to Phnom Penh, we finally woke up at 7am the next morning having missed our first evening in the capital, which was a little frustrating.

The next day, we went to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, which was on the grounds of the Palace. We should have planned a little better as we know that, as a woman, you cannot show your shoulders in Cambodian temples. As we went to pay the admission, the woman behind the counter pointed at Lisa’s shoulders. We had a choice of going back to the hotel or buying a cheesy “Angkor Wat” emblazoned t-shirt. At US$3, we chose the latter. Unfortunately, for Lisa it only came in one size so she wore a t-shirt that looked like a tent around the site (no photos were taken of her wearing the t-shirt at her insistence!!!). The guide who took us round was worth the US$7.

On the way back to the room, we decided to pick up the washing. It’s was ready and neatly packaged so we went to celebrate having a full wardrobe back. A few yards down the road, we grabbed a couple of cocktails and some wine at Rubies Wine Bar. Lisa couldn’t resist pulling out the washing from the bag while we were having a drink.........we wished she hadn’t bothered. The incompetent idiot at the laundrette had washed everything together so half the clothes had blue dye over them. For some unexplained reason, the woman at the laundrette had bagged the ruined clothes neatly with the other and thought this would be fine. It wasn’t and Mark made sure she was aware of this as he stormed down the street swinging the bag like a weapon!!! It turned out that no one spoke English so Mark went to some shops and grabbed a makeshift translator. The clothes were re-washed and only one thing was ruined. If anyone stays in 240 street, don’t go to the laundrette round the corner (100 yards from Rubies wine bar) in street 19!!!

Anyway, it turns out that luckily for us street 240 seemed to have a few good places to go. We checked out Freebird, which did a great burger (after 2 months without one, it was heaven sent), and The Chocolate shop that did the best ever truffles and pralines. There were a few other places there but we decided to catch these on our return after completing the next stop of our journey to Kratie (where we would be doing a bit of charity work with Actionaid). We had sent emails to and fro with Chhonn from Actionaid and agreed to meet him at Kratie so needed to organise a bus transfer with a local tour operator for the next day.

It was sad to say goodbye to Phnom Penh but we knew that in a handful of days we would be back. With the bill paid, we sat in the reception of the hotel after feasting on another nice organic breakfast (the hotel’s trademark), waiting for the tuk-tuk to take us to the bus terminal. Suddenly there was a call to say that the tuk-tuk had broken down and now we had a last minute panic to make the bus. Fortunately, we were there just in time. As we boarded, it was clear that Kratie was not number 1 on the tourist route, as 50 Cambodian faces peered up from their seats.........they probably wondered why tourists would bother going to Kratie (we were the only white faces onboard).......we soon understood why they were thinking this. More to come in the next update!!!