On Friday morning 7 of us got up early in order to catch the 6 hour bus to Phnom Penh, and we actually had a suprisingly comfy journey there, apart from the bumpy minbus ride to Siem Reap bus station. The buses were described as "luxury limosines" but they didn't look much different than a normal coach - although obviously they weren't quite the same as the Westerbus!

When we arrived at Phnom Penh we were supposed to be getting picked up by our guest house, yet only one tuk-tuk arrived to pick us up, and whilst we all enthusiastically tried to squeeze into it, the driver could move no more than a couple of miles an hour and so we resorted to waiting for another tuk-tuk to pick us up. Phnom Penh is a much bigger city than Siem Reap, and I have become so used to its quite and relaxed ways that I found Phnom Penh too big and loud. Whilst our guesthouse was described as within the city centre, the city centre was so large that it took us 10 mins to drive there from the main high street. Our guesthouse was also interesting as Alice and I were given a room tucked away in some hidden wing that was clearly only made for hobbits as we could fit our hands on the ceiling and had to bend down to get through the door.

Our first port of call was the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, but we mistakenly attempted to walk there, not quite realising how far away our guesthouse was. When we eventually got there we had only an hour of visiting time left but we managed to see plenty of monks and the majority of the grounds, as well as going inside the Silver Pagoda with its silver floor.

On Saturday we all decided that we wanted to go to the Killing Fields, now the Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre, and S-21, a former high school which the leaders of the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison.

Possibly because it is located right on the riverside, Phnom Penh is less hot than Siem Reap and we actually found it cold. To add to this, it started raining on Saturday afternoon and did not cease for the rest of the day!

TO BE CONTINUED!