Enough of island living and mad heat! On to Cambodia and mad heat!! ;o)
We knew we had a mad journey ahead of us - Cambodia's roads are notorious. But I don't think we ever thought how bad it could be. People on their travels longer said it was the worst journey they had ever taken - so this is reassuring us now.
We left Si Phan Don at 8am on Tuesday 16 May and got into Phnom Penh at 2am on Wed 17 May. It is around 350 km from SPD to PP. We all bundled into a boat again, the onto a large tuk-tuk - this ended up carrying about 25 of us down to the Laos/Cambodian border - or rather 4 km short of it, where we stopped in the middle of the woods and this guy pops up to say he is our guide through the border. He split us up into those who had visas already and those who hadn't (we were in the "hadn't group). He then asked for $2 to sweeten the Laos guys as a depature tax, $20 for the Cambodian visa, $1 for the Cambodian visa guy, $1 for the Cambodian immigration guy and another $5 to ensure speedy visa and immigration processing - which we are 124% sure went to him and no-where near an official of any kind....
(Pic: Cambodia side of the border. Note the road looked like this for about 3km)Lots of standing around ensued once we got to the Cambodian side. Then 15 of us were all thrown into a minivan for 11 people, where we were ferried down to a place called Streung Treung - out we hopped again on to a boat to cross the river (bridge crossing the Mekhong will be finished in about 2 years). The roads we experienced to ST gave us some hope that perhaps our Lonely Planet was out of date on the "state of the roads" info. Alas, it was not.
We had a baguette (can't escape them) at Richies "No MSG" Restaurant. We think we saw Richie, if that were he with the McGyver hair and flicked yellow shirted collar. Finally our luxury minivan to take us to PP showed up.. Luxury is in fact the complete opposite to what it really was. Haven't seen anything like it since the 70s in Ireland!! We found out afterwards that the owner / driver paid $4000 for it!! he is trying to get started in the tourism sector. No matter how bad we felt for him, it didn't help us get over the trip. But I did feel like giving him an extra $20 for getting us to PP in one piece despite the roads, the animals, the motorbikes and especially the one headlight that was the strength of candlelight.... Apart from this, words fail. This trip deserves a blogsite all to itself.
We changed at Kamphong Cham - those going to Siem Reap had to stay overnight, the rest of us headed straight on to PP where we were brought to a guesthouse we didn't particularly want to stay at, but who's going to argue too much when knackered, hair is mattered, white top has now turned to red from the dust (have pic, will post asap), bruised, hungry etc. We slept 6 hours, then woke cos the fan in the room had gone off and we had started to drip! Along with a couple we had journeyed with, we moved to another guesthouse where we have been staying for the last few days. Lovely family run, friendly plance with most importantly AC and TV. We felt like treating ourselves ;o)
Our guesthouse shows the Killing Fields most nights for the guests, so it was good to get some context that evening (once we had spent another 4 hours in jet lag type sleep recovering from the 18 hour journey). The following day, one of the lads from the guesthouse brought us to all the must-see places including one of the Killing Fields Memorials, S-21 Prison, Royal Palace, National Museum, markets etc. The whole experience of seeing the Killing Fields and the prison was very moving.
Phnom Penh is certainly "bustling" as LP calls it. Once we get used to driving into oncoming traffic, we'll feel just at home!
(Pic: View from the back of our tuk-tuk in Phnom Penh; our driver was such a sweet kid, he bought us masks for the dust! all part of the price I'm sure however...look closely, you can see us - just! - in the rear-view)
Now, where to find a pub that is showing Munster V Biarritz tonight!!
On to Siem Reap and the might that is Angkor tomorrow...
(What's Hot, What's Not has some interesting updates)
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