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13 June: Phnom Penh

We collected all the bags and headed to the reception to settle our account before leaving. They had not reduced our bill with the off chicken meal which I pointed out to them, in the end all we were able to accomplish was a reduction from $1.8 to $1.2 of the meal! We were right on time, waiting for the bus at the entrance at 07h40 to arrive. We remained that way until 08h15 before I went to call the bus just to make sure it would still come. I made the $0.50 payment for the 1 minute call and headed off to wait until 08h25, when the minivan arrived to take us to the bus.

The bus trip was nothing special and most of us kept to ourselves, reading or watching the landscape passing us by as we headed South to Phnom Penh for 6 hours drive. Once we arrived we were flooded by Tuk Tuk drivers all trying to grab your bags in an attempt to get you to go with them. It took some time to figure out where we were before heading for the Lakeside area, where all backpackers stay. The walk was almost 2km, in front, Mike, an American almost 2.2m in length lead the way. Every stride for him was almost two for the four of us following :-)

We arrived at lakeside without much difficulty and headed for Number 9 guest house, as it was the Lonely Planet recommendation. The places here were semi clean inside but the outside was appalling, you almost felt like it was in Kayalitsha. - the water was filled with rubbish of all kind! We were still unsure whether we wanted to stay the evening, so we dropped our bags in Mike's room and headed off to find cleaner and greener pastures. We went to at least 7 other places all either the same or worse. In the end we decided to stay there, at least we only had to pay $4 for the both of us.

We all met up again and decided to head out for lunch/dinner, walking around we eventually headed to one of our earlier accommodation options that also served food really cheap. So cheap in fact that for $1.5 you buy a very nice fried rice and vegetable dinner and a milkshake, having bought more than $2.5 together, Leanne and I received a Coke as this was a special they were offering. After dinner we headed to the centre of Phnom Penh to find Canadia bank, the only one that didn't charge commissions and the central market.

The road to the bank was a long one, filled with many wrong turns due to people either not knowing or understanding what we want and pointing out in a general direction. At last we found the bank, more by accident than anything else. We had given up hope of finding the bank and headed for the central market only to find it closed and walked to the mall adjacent to it where the ATM was located outside. At least we could buy cereal and other necessities. Afterwards we headed home where we split up all in their own directions, we headed for the internet café before going to bed.