Hotel Le Royal Phnom Penh

Whilst the Italian woman from the day before had to be forcibly dragged back into the hotel lobby we had to be practically dragged out - we could definitely get used to this five star Raffles luxury. We all had received a cryptic message under our doors about not wearing our bike gear for breakfast in such a high class establishment. Most of us were able to decipher - so it was hilarious when we witnessed our fashion Nazi of the trip waltz into the grand establishment to coughs and splutters ...

Getting to Siem Reap There are basically two ways of getting from Bangkok to Siem Reap. The first is to fly with Bangkok Airways. We looked into this and decided our poor budget couldn't cope so we decided on the second option which is to go over land on the coach to the border and then get a taxi of some sort on the other side. This sounds OK until you start reading stuff about it. There's the straight through ticket, otherwise known as the scam bus, where you're scammed at every opportunity...

hello cette semaine a ete tres dure : lever a 6h45 et travail de tous les instants avec les enfants qui se battent comme des chifonniers : la derniere fois g arrete la classe car ils se battaient trop ( sur 10 yen avait 6 ki se battaient) et ca risquait de degenerer (je sais ils sont super agressifs car ils ont rien mais je veux leur inculquer des valeurs : c a cet age la qu'il faut le faire, le directeur de l'orphelinat est trop permissif mais bon...) lundi je commence ds de nouvelles condit...

Phnom Penh was a bit of a shock: a lot poorer than I imagined, despite it being the capital city. There was also a huge Water Festival going on to celbrate the turning of the tides. The city was packed out with people, some of which had travelled a long way from the provinces. We stayed at the Hope and Anchor on the main street. It was a nice place but rather pricey at $45 per night. We were told that PP has a problem with reasonable quality accommodation so perhaps this was a good deal. We h...

If ever one needed proof that true evil can exist in the world, it is only necessary to visit Tuol Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields. Luckily, this is balanced by a beautiful country full of gentle, gracious people. How can some of these same people have participated in the genocide of 1975-79? I really don't know. It seems impossible that such a thing could happen here, but the tower of skulls at Choeung Ek bears silent testimony to the fact that it did. Phnom Penh is a small city, by Asia...

Well Miracles do happen...... I made it even after being dropped off at the wrong terminal initially. The adrenaline was pumping, my faith in transport had been restored. So after my 12 hour bus journey and 1 hour flight I was happy to see the familiar faces of Anna and Meera friends of mine from London. They are out here for a month to see Cambodia and Vietnam. Due to the fact they are only on a months holiday the word budget has a different meaning so we checked into Raffles. WOW, luxury be...

Three years ago, Andrea and Andrew went to Phnom Penh, the capitol city of Cambodia. Back then, the city seemed very poor, rough and unsafe. This city has a dark and disturbing history. It has been called "city of ghosts." In April of 1975, the Khmer Rouge, headed by Pol Pot, entered the city after having defeated the US backed government. The Cambodian people were excited and thought this was the end of the civil war which was ravaging the country. Nothing could have been farther from the tr...

We are on a rest day in Phnom Penh. Yesterday was a wonderful drive through a very rural part of Cambodia. A nice lunch along the way and various stops to be exposed to local life along the road. We are in a beautiful comfortable hotel for our rest day. In the road book yesterday was a stop at the outskirts of Phnom Penh described as the Killing Field. In our plans for this journey we had discussed this and what it meant. I had known about Pol Pot and his governments activities. Nothing prepa...

Thought maybe I, also, should comment on yesterday and today regarding Choeung Ek, aka the killing fields, and S-21, the high school-turned detention- torture center. Fred is entirely correct. No matter how much one might have read or remembered about the Pol Pot atrocities, nothing will have prepared you for what we experienced. We arrived at the killing field outside Phnom Penh and paid our $2 entry. The first sight that drew our attention was the huge glass tower filled with some the crack...

We went to Cambodia for two reasons - to see Warren, and to see the area around Angkor Wat where Jen's paternal grandfather had worked in around 1915. Warren had taught Ash for his first two years at primary school and has been a close family friend on Jen's side ever since. He dropped in to the Mount last year when we were renovating and persuaded us that Cambodia was not to be missed on our careerbreak. On arrival we learnt that the Cambodians benefit from foreign aid at every opportunity: ...