domestik.net

We spent the best part of 2 weeks there. Did the Angkor Ruins thing as we’ve already said. Caught a Kick ass Karaoke bus from Angkor down to Phnom Penh. Nice easy trip on good roads slept a bit and read a bit saw a bit of scenery. By and large Cambodia seems to be quite flat and pretty arid. Not a lot going on on the road, a bit like the Hume but without as many cows.

Phnom Penh did our heads in. An absolute assault from the second we got off the Karaoke bus. Stinky city sprawl with mental roads and crazy motorbike drivers. We saw a guy prang his scooter. No one stopped, the police ran over (just to have a look) and he winds up picking up the scooter, dusting himself off and rides off bleeding!

Still on the topic of motorbikes, you can fit your family and the neighbors on one scooter. Alternatively with the use of a couple of bamboo pole you can convert it into a pick up truck. I’m amazed at how much you can actually fit on one bike!

So after a healthy dose of fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh we decided to get the hell out of there. It was time for the beach. Somehow we dropped straight into holiday time warp and spent 5 days lying on the beach. Ahhh life’s tough. Sihanoukville named after the king is a relatively sleepy if very well touristed beach town. Was a really nice break.

On a sad note though the poverty there is really full on. Loads of beggars be it amputee, single mother or five year old. Was really sad. There are some good local organisations though doing stuff to help. www.starfishcambodia.org (site wasn’t working when I went to it) re-unite single mothers and their street kids and train the mothers in some measure of earning and caring capacity.

So after 5 days doing very little we decided to brave Phnom Penh again, Not so bad this time. We stayed by Lake Boeng Kak. Awesome sunsets and a bit of a backpackersville. Saw the National museum which was pretty cool. Decided to avoid the killing fields, may regret this later but we’ve got a fair Idea of the situation and didn’t really want to stand with a bunch of other tourists where people were executed, Iv’e probably missed the point but just wasn’t up to it. You only need to look around to get an Idea of the damage Pol Pot delivered, There are hardly any old people!

On a happier note, after another 8 hour karaoke bus trip we arrived in Saigon this afternoon. We had been expecting it to be another assault to the senses but couldn’t have been easier. Staying at a hotel next door to where the bus dropped us off. Grabbed a late lunch across the road and had a very easy walk around. Everything I had read lead me to believe that we were going to be robbed the minute we got off the bus. Oh well, maybe tomorrow will be a different story.

Tags: Cambodia, Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005 at 12:31 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.