Grand View Guest House Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is very a special place. Not in a bad way. It's not an easy place to be. Hot and edgy, with a rising economy set against the history of Cambodia which is markedly present in this city since the Khmer Rouge killed and exiled most of its inhabitants. In just 2 days here we had more than enough. We walked to the beautiful modern theatre to see a show we had been told about which marked 60 years since the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which Cambodia now subscribes to. On the way we g...

Well, again another eventful overland travel trip from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.
We woke early at 4.45 am to breakfast and shower before we caught our connecting bus to the bus station (if you can call a line of buses that) at 6am. We got to the station and were surrounded by begging children asking for water or trying to sell us fruit. We loaded our luggage and sat watching it until the bus left. At every stop there after we anxiously watched our luggage to check that nobody took it. Afte...

We had provisionally booked a Tuk Tuk for the day with Ryan and Helena, $5 each to be taken around for the day to the sites we requested. First we wanted to visit the S-21 genocidal museum because it will tell us all the information about Khmer Rouge. The S-21 museum use to be a school until Khmer Rouge killed all teachers and converted the school into a prison, where were doing or had done, nothing wrong, and were tortured until they confessed to the things that they had been told they had d...

Alustavaa tunnustelua, Phnom Penh 26-30.10.2008 Tilanteen Defcon oli jo tovin viivähtänyt nelosessa, joten totesimme että länkkäritouhulle on aikansa ja paikkansa. Otimme Samrongin torilta taksin Siem Reapiin, perille päästyämme nappasimme lounaaksi läsimaalaisittain meksikolaista ja joimme kahvit jo tutuksi käyneessä Blue Pumpkin -nimisessä loistokkaassa kahviossa. Kohtalon patarumpu löi tahtia meidän pillimme mukaan ja ajoituksemme Phenom Pheniin lähtevään bussiin osui täydellisesti, myöski...

Phnom Penh was so different from Siem Reap. It's hard to write about how great this city is because the majority of what you see here is so depressing. Walking through the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng torture prison is so hard for the human soul to understand and endure. One thing that was so odd about the Killing Fields was the juxtaposition of natural beauty and evil deeds. On the mass graves, beautiful lavendar flowers have sprouted up in the "pits" where the victims were excavated (...

Smaller City than Saigon, but it feels much the same so I didnt spend too long here. I only stayed for one day and visited S-21 or the Tuol Sleng Museum, The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, the Royal Palace, Wat Phnom and the Independence Monument. I have never seen so many skulls in one day. The Khmer Rouge killed mainly the educated, well off and the physically attractive - they saw them as a threat. Makes you realise how Cambodia is in such a mess economically (they lost their skilled worker...

Phew the last one was a long one to write, thank god I'm on free internet! So we left Siem Reap in the usual dreaded manner...the bus. It began well, we were on an a/c bus with plenty of room and no blaring Cambodian Karaoke. Too much room it turned out, and after waiting for 45min for the bloody thing to leave, we were all told to get off and instead swap to the other bus that left at 11.30 instead of 10.30 so that they could combine 2 lots of bus passengers. The new bus was rusty with a ver...

:D

Waking up at 4.30 is no fun...
But we get up anyway to catch the bus from our hotel at 6. Waking up the guys in the hammoks downstairs is a bit tough but eventually they wake and are more than happy to get us some breakfast. We get on to a minibus that takes us to the bus station which is more like an unused patch of muddy road really. There we wait for 20mins or so before we head off, keeping a close eye on our luggage. So eventually we set off and get treated to 7 hours of a Japanese com...

We roll into Phnom Penh an a bus with defunct air.con. We start moving with sweat dripping all over the place, and Joel take charge because he knows where to go. He directed the tuk-tuk to Lakeside and check us in to a room. A terrible room. So I use my veto and the day after we moved. We activated our tourist genes and start exploring the city. Map in one hand, camera in the other. It is relatively easy to navigate around the city because the streets are just named as numbers, where east-wes...