Phnom Penh

My first night in Cambodia was absolutely horrible! It was dark and p*ssing it down when I arrived, the roads were flooded and I didn't know where I was. I wandered around for a bit looking for a hotel but just succeeded in getting wet and having to walk through gutter water in flip flops! I eventually gave in a got a tuk tuk to take me to a guesthouse from Lonely Planet. It was a right dump but at this point I didn't care I just wanted a bed! Sometimes LP is gives some really crap advice. It had told me the neighbourhood where this guesthouse was located was one of two backpacker districts but there was absolutely nothing there but 2 guesthouses.

I ate a pretty disgusting meal and read a bit of Bob Wilson's autobiography that I picked up in Nha Trang and then formulated a plan. I really needed to find Adrian (if he'd made his bus!) as he had given me his scuba-diving licence for safe keeping in my money belt the previous night and he wouldn't be able to dive in Thailand without it. He also owed me 20 bucks! :) I read about the other backpacker area on the waterfront in the guidebook so I planned to move there the next day, so that either I'd see Adrian around or meet some other people.

Next morning I got up early and moved straight away. The other backpacker area was a bit of a slum but it definitely had more of a buzz about it and there were plenty of bars and restaurants too. The first guesthouse I looked at was a hole so I moved swiftly on. Avoiding the hoardes of touts I came across Number 9 Sister Guesthouse and immediately fell in love with its waterfront terrace bar/restaurant/chill-out area. I didn't care what the room looked like but thankfully it was pretty nice too. I got the check-in sheet and my luck was in there too, the name above mine was Adrian's!


I met up with Adrian over breakfast, along with another English guy called Chris. We decided to do the full Phnom Penh experience that day. This includes the famous Killing Fields and S-21 prison where Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge tortured and killed thousands of innocent Cambodians. The other key Phnom Penh activity is the shooting range. We hired our tuk tuk for the day and decided to do the shooting range first as a lot of people had told us you don't really feel like it after seeing some of the horrors at the other 2 places.

We arrived down a dusty track to a little metal roofed building, indistinguishable from most of the little farmhouses... except for the rack of M16's, Ak47's and tommy guns lining the wall!! I only intended to spend $10 or so on ammo but when you get 3 lads together, dress them in combat gear and let them play with guns then we tend to get carried away! We all chose to shoot an AK47 machine gun and a Colt 45 hand gun... at a cost of $45. Oops. Oh well, it was worth it. When in your life do you... Oh. That's what I said when I shot an AK47 only 2 days ago! We were led through a door into the actual firing range which consisted of a dark tunnel with a target and a load of tyres at the end to stop the bullets going through the wall. The Colt 45 was first, it has a hell of a kick and is a lot heavier and more difficult to aim than I imagined (from watching too many American movies!). Next up was the AK again. It was much better this time as it wasn't screwed on to anything and I could also fire it in automatic mode, firing a hail of bullets at once. After that it was time to get some pictures with the guns in our shooting outfits. I'll post them up as soon as I can as they are worth the $45 alone!

The afternoon was a much more sombre affair. We walked round the Killing Fields which is eerily silent. There is not much there now as most of the mass graves have been dug up to see the extent of what went on. The place must have been literally heaving with bodies though as there are bits of bone and clothing visible in the ground everywhere. The site is dominated by a 70 ft high glass tower that contains all the skulls of the 8000 + victims they've discovered. It is really one of the most shocking things you'll ever see.

The next stop was perhaps more harrowing. S-21 prison is where those suspected of collaborating against the Khmer Rouge regime were taken, interrogated and brutally tortured before being sent to be killed. What's even more shocking is that the building was formerly a school until Pol Pot coverted the classrooms into torture chambers and tiny cells. They even used the climbing frame as a set of gallows. Sick. They have a picture of everyone who died at S-21 and there are hundreds of them. They also have pictures of the 11 or 12 corpses that were found in there torture rooms strapped to iron beds when the regime finally fell. The beds are still in the rooms along with leg clamps and other instruments for inflicting pain. Unsuprisingly the place is ghostly silent.

After the days horrors we spent the evening undertaking some serious R+R on our lovely guesthouse terrace, enjoying some comedy DVDs and a couple of beer Angkors. Next day it's off to Siam Reap and the spectacular Angkor Wat - Cambodia's national symbol and the world's largest religous complex.