26th – Always having fun on vacations

We left the hotel at 0800 where we were picked up by bus and guide who were to show us the Killing Fields and S21. 

The Killing Fields just outside the city is where the Khmer Rouge took their prisoners and political opponents and had them killed. The area was littered with mass graves – and that was just those you could see. Or rather; that was just the holes that were left over from excavations you could see. There are still plenty of graves that have yet been opened and documented. It was quite an unpleasant experience but a big part of history, and it felt even worse when considering all this was just happening back in the 70’s.

Indentations from mass graves.

Returning to the city the next stop on the way was the prison named S21. Here the Khmer Rouge held their prisoners and put them through torture, similar to what I had seen previously at the Hanoi Hilton. It was the usual that characterizes these kinds of places; harrowing, horrible treatment of people, a bit too creative torture methods, and short survival rates. But what made this place different from the Hilton was that there were tables set up in a few places so that if you wanted you could have a talk with some of the surviving prisoners.

Interrogation room.

The S21 prison.

From there we left to go to a restaurant where they take poor kids in and train them for free before they move on to work in other restaurants. Their beef with red ants was delicious. Somebody ordered snacks in the form of crickets and tarantulas; the crickets tasted, and sounded, like chips (if you could ignore the long tickly antennas), and the tarantula’s legs were quite non-threatening, too. Though I didn’t taste the actual body of the tarantulas others did, and they seemed to be enjoying the taste.

After the meal we had some free time so some of us went to the royal palace to have a look. As we arrived just before 1400 we were among the first people entering after the mid-day break, giving as a few minutes in the area almost alone which was pretty nice. Unfortunately large parts of the palace grounds was closed off, we assume it was due to the king being in, so in an hour or so we had seen it all and left. On the way back to the hotel we went through a local market, not so much for the market itself but rather to see the building where it was from the inside. It was quite impressive.

Inside the royal palace grounds.

Inside the local market.

After an hour’s break we left the hotel yet again around 1630 to go on a sunset cruise. The view of the city and its waterfront was nice after it got dark, but due to it being overcast we saw very little of the actual sunset.

Coming back onto land around 1900 some of us decided to postpone dinner for a while with an hour-long massage followed by some drinks. The massage part was new to me, I understand why people get it but I didn’t really feel it – or maybe it was because we might not have been handled by the most competent. I couldn’t really tell without having any reference, but considering the price I couldn’t really complain. Afterwards we ended up in an Indian restaurant with some delicious food which we ended up ordering way too much of, and when we finally rolled out from there and returned to the hotel it was around 2300.

Looking at the cars driving around it seems like the locals really like Toyota Priuses (Pri-i?) and if you are a bit more well off you’d probably be among those driving a Lexus.

25th – Go west!

Today’s main plan was to jump onto a bus at 0800 from the hotel and take it to cross the border into Cambodia and drive to the capitol Phnom Penh. Our guide had informed us that instead of a private bus we would be going on a public one, so I was expecting a day on a rickety bus barely holding itself together. Instead we were picked up by a very nice bus with functioning AC (the most important) and even though every seat was booked and eventually occupied there was – relatively – enough space for a fairly comfortable drive. There were two small kids that were quite rowdy for most of the time, though, and their parents didn’t really do anything to keep them in check. Oh, well, you can’t have it all.

Nearing the border a guy with the bus collected all our passports and visas or visa applications to make sure everything was in order, and when reaching the Vietnamese border he then handed them back. We went through the border, returned to the bus, and those without visas handed in their passports once again. We drove for a few minutes through no man’s land before reaching the Cambodian side where we with visas could go through immediately. I realized that I couldn’t, though, because somewhere between collecting my passport and handing it back he had thrown away my entry/departure card (and visa proof of purchase) so I had to find a new card to fill out first. I managed to get through, and when the last group had crossed the border (those with visa applications who got a visa on arrival) we returned to the bus and continued.

After a few minutes’ drive we stopped for lunch before continuing the drive which around 1645 brought us to our hotel. At some point along the way the bus-passport-guy returned my visa proof of purchase – but my arrival/departure card was still missing. After having filled out a new one the old was irrelevant, but still, as the two had been in the same place the entire situation was just weird.

At 1730 we went on a cycle tour – seated in a seat on the front of a bike with a local driver so we didn’t have to do any work ourselves. We came by a statue of Lady Penh, according to legend the founder of Phnom Penh. From there we went by the independence monument before bringing us down near the river where we were picked up by tuk-tuks that took us a bit out of the city to a private family who had a local dinner ready for us. It was absolutely delicious; spring rolls, beef & noodles, chicken curry, vegetables, meat skewers and of course plenty of rice. We ended the day when we returned to the hotel at around 2100.

Independence monument.

This little fellow was hanging out at the dinner place.

When entering Phnom Penh it felt a lot like HCMC, but with less scooters and more cars. Seems to be slightly more orderly, too. There are a lot of large buildings and large buildings being built which you didn’t really see much of in HCMC, so in that sense this city seems a fair bit more modern.