19. Phnom Penh, parte the laste: The Palace

I spent  the last few days in Phnom Penh taking in some of the sights like the history museum and doing some less interesting things like visiting another gym (as it had been a while since doing anything active) and going to a big mall to grab some bits and pieces.

All to quickly it was the day before we were to head on to Sihanoukville. That evening to celebrate Pat and I decided to consume a titanic volume of beer in various establishments along the river front. Once that mission was complete we headed home. On the way back we once again passed the kings palace. This time nobody was there, as opposed to the last time when numerous locals were camped out in front. The only person I could see was one guard asleep in a hammock near the entrance. If anyone wanted to attempt a coup of the monarchy, I thought aloud, then that night would have been an excellent time.

The palace was a bit of a magnet for moths

We passed the guard and came to a point where the wall was slightly lower than at other points. Our keen sense of exploration, combined with our inebriation slightly trumped our newfound reverence for Cambodian culture. I decided to pull myself up onto the wall to take a look into the ground of the palace.It was quite dark and I couldn't really see anything, so decided to get back down before I upset anybody.
We decided that this was successful proof that invading the country would be a cinch I hope that nobody learns of our drunken and abortive attempt to invade the country. I think the safest way to do that is to write about it here on the internet.

The ok guesthouse turned out to actually be not just ok, but pretty good. All of the staff were great and there was a lot of rapport.
For example one day one of the staff said to me,
"Hey, you got a problem with me, man?". appearing to square up for a fight,
I wasn't sure if he was joking, so a little uncertainly I assumed he was and replied "Yeah, I've got a problem with you"
He was joking, and proceeded to cheerfully box my midriff. I suppose in retrospect that we did appear to be big fans of Khmer boxing, as it was the first thing we went to see when getting to town. So it became a running joke between me and him. Every time we met there was another pretend outrage that we needed to square off about.

All too quickly the day of departure came about. It was with a little regret that we had to leave because I had very much enjoyed my time in the Cambodian capital. A minibus that we had booked rolled up to the guesthouse and we clambered aboard and headed off for Sihanoukville.

18. Phnom Penh, Parte the seconde: Killing Fields

We had a general plan for our time in the city. It was to spend a few more days there, and then head down to the coastal town of Sihanoukville.

Pat and I had arranged to do a tour of the S-21 genocide museum and the Choueng Ek killing fields, and the person we naturally asked to take us was the ex-boxer driver who to the khmer boxing and the river front. It was clear that he had decided that he was our dedicated chauffeur, so welcomed us warmly whenever we emerged from the guest house ahead of any of the other drivers and took us where we wanted to go.

It was sad and unbelievable to learn about what had happened, I'll avoid describing it all in this blog, because that's not what it is for but I'd recommend reading a little about it. It certainly put a new perspective on my visit to the country, to think that as little as 30 years ago a third of the population of the country had been wiped out.
So we walked around the old school that had been used to imprison the political prisoners. Following that we took an audio tour of the killing fields, and learned about those. One chilling fact that stuck with me was that after a rainfall they need to walk around and clear away the human bones that have risen to the surface.

Sobering

Many of the tuk tuk hawkers tended to offer a package which included what we had done (killing fields and the genocide museum), followed by a trip to a range where you could shoot some real guns. I thought that was a pretty strange thing to want to do having just visited sites famed for mass execution. So we didn't do that.

17. Phnom Penh, Parte the firste: Khmer Boxing

All of the roads I'd been on in Cambodia were really flat, and straight and long. For one things this lead me to believe that the country actually didn't have any hills. I still don't know if it does, to be honest. Despite the long straight roads everyone still seemed to drive like a complete maniac. Our minivan driver was no exception on our journey to Phnom Pehn, careening around all the other traffic with his hand permanently glued to the horn.
About an hour from the capital, the motorway (well it was only 1 lane) (not that this stopped people from using the side of the road all the time) (or any bit of the road not occupied with an object, for that matter) descended into a dusty, rocky, gravelly mess. Apparently it was undergoing some sort of rejuvenation. The driver, unconcerned by the deterioration of the road surface, continued on at breakneck pace. After about 10 minutes, somewhat unsurprisingly, one of the tyres blew. He had a spare though, a little to my surprise. I has assumed that his laissez faire attitude towards safety on the road would also apply to preparing for such things as a flat tyre.

So we arrived in Phnom Pehn in one piece and proceeded to shop around for a tuk tuk. After finding one we took a mini tour of the several guest houses that we had earmarked ahead of setting out from Siem Reap. It took some time as we discover that the ones we wanted were either full or a bit too pricey. Our driver finally suggested one called "OK Guest House". I found it to be ok. We took a couple of rooms there (only $7 a night) and settled in.

The guest house seemed rather popular with tuk tuk drivers for some reason, many relaxed in the street outside and seemed to filter in and out of the front lobby / restaurant area that opened out onto the street and where the common area was. The drivers were quite friendly and chatty, and thanks to a tip from one of them we learn there was going to be a fairly big Khmer boxing fight in the city, part of the national championship. This sounded like fun, so the driver that mentioned it took us.

Khmer boxing

It was very busy at the arena. There was a film crew there for TV coverage. There was even a cordoned off area especially for a large group of gamblers, who smoked profusely and waggled bits of paper at eachother. Our driver joined us in the arena as well.

It was entertaining to watch the fights, I couldn't tell you any more detail than that, really. I wasn't sure if there was match rigging going on, but one in one of the bouts a fighter was knocked clean out within 2 punches, so I did wonder. This made the gaggle of smoking gamblers hoot and yell in disapproval. Or it might have been approval, it was difficult to tell.
The driver seemed to be especially in to the whole thing, miming the punches and wincing emphatically. He told us on the way back that he actually used to do Khmer boxing.

The next day I explored the city a little. Cambodia historically had been a French colony, and this was clear from many French influences in some of the structures and leafy open spaces. The traffic was quite sketchy. It mostly comprised of scooters. On some of the bigger roads there was no break in the flow, and so you simply had to walk out into it and hope that they would avoid you.

That evening was begun inauspiciously with some drop dead exciting admin. Pat's bank were asking him to confirm his identity by sending a fax or some such. We embarked on our quest but despite being in the capital city, finding somewhere with fax technology proved nigh on impossible. We spent a good couple of hours attempting to find somewhere to do it with no success.
Eventually we ended up asking our driver from earlier if he knew anywhere. Indeed he did. Turns out it was in the one place we didn't check, about 10 minutes from our guest house along the river front. We thanked him and before long it was all sorted. On the way back we had some food and a fair few drinks. We went via the palace of the king of Cambodia. It was very well lit up and spectacular. There were lots of locals outside the palace, sat on mats, praying, selling or eating food and just generally hanging out. We speculated inconclusively as to what they were doing there, before getting back near midnight a little tipsy and very tired.

The driver was somehow still there and awake. He greeted us cordially and bade us good night. I started to suspect he lived in his tuk tuk.

16. Mekong Whiskey

The following day Pat had overcome his gastronomic woes, so to make up for lost time we decided to get a tuk tuk to some temples, which would allow to more distant areas like the ancient Banta Srei, This temple was very ornate but quite small, only a few heads taller than i was.

temple running

That evening we celebrated the successful day by drinking a titanic amount of alcohol, mostly at the guest house. We chatted and took turns to choose songs to play on our phones. At one point we ran out of booze so took a jaunt down the road to try and find an open shop.
The problem was it was extremely late and we could not see anything that might want to sell us anything. What we did see was a group of young Cambodian men gathered around some scooters on a street corner, not appearing to be up to much. As we approached they asked us "where we go" (as men with scooters have a habit of doing) so we asked them: Where is open and will sell us whiskey? They knew just the place. So we both hopped on the back of a scooter and we were taken to a shop that was open. After a short browse we discovered a 70cl whiskey called Mekong whiskey that cost $1.30. Holy crap! I thought. We got this and a bottle of coke, then got driven back to the guest house.

After that we sat out on the shared balcony overlooking the street. It was quite pleasant and warm, from what I remember. Which wasn't a great deal. At one point someone came out to have a look around. We said hello. He was a Japanese tourist so we invited him to have some of our whiskey. He politely accepted and joined us, His English wasn't great so he used google translate on my phone to converse with us, letting us know it was his last night in the city, asking where we were from etc.
At one point Pat, sat on the balcony railing fell off in the wrong direction, I nearly had a heart attack. He fell down about one story onto the top of the reception area below us. I jumped up and looked down, at which point he was already getting up, laughing. He hopped into the balcony on the floor near him and made his way back up, unhurt.

We made plans to stay another couple of nights in Siem Reap then head down to Phnom Pehn, so I spent the next day or two exploring Siem Reap and taking one more cycle tour of some of the other smaller temples that I had not yet visited. I even treated myself to one of those foot massages you can get with fish, They gave me a beer to sip whilst watching people pass in the street, so it felt very peculiar but not unpleasant.

All too quickly it came time to leave, so we packed our things and bundled into a minivan bound for the capital.

15. Angkor What?

I had made it to Cambodia. A different side of the country than I had been expecting, but by this point I was only making plans for things that lay directly in my future feeling very much like a leaf on the wind.

First order of business in the early evening in Siem Reap was to get some food with my new friend Pat Carty. There was a local looking place across the street from our guesthouse so we popped in there. I ordered what I believed to be a filling Khmer dish, but which turned out to be a pathetic amount of plain chicken and a tiny pile of plain rice.
After that we strolled to where we had been lead to understand by guidebooks that the nightlife was, primarily: pub street. We had a beer, and then another, and so on.
We got to know each other fairly well. He was 19 and from near Winnipeg in Canada. Bit of an outdoorsman, enjoying ski-ing, Kayaking etc and of course: Hockey.

During that evening various establishments were visited. We ended up in a bar where we challenged a couple of Cambodian guys to pool (as I had been itching for a game fora while), It may have been my inebriation, but I could not understand the peculiar rules they were using. Well the peculiar rules, which took 10 minutes to fathom, were that they were potting odds and evens, rather than spots and stripes which is what I thought was going on. In any case we were soundly thrashed several times. We tended to our wounded pride by drinking several pitchers of beer and dancing the night away.

The next day I nursed a hangover and generally planned some things to do during my time in Siem Reap. One of those things was to rent a bike to cycle around the area where the ancient and famous temples were. I bumped into Pat who was similarly hung over, and then later the couple from the bus. That evening I revealed my cunning plan to cycle around the temples. Pat said that sounded good and to knock on his door in the morning to go,
The next morning I tried to wake him as asked but there was no response! I tried a few more times but to no avail. With that, assuming that he had changed his mind, I went down to reception where they rented bikes at a very reasonable rate ($5 for the day), took one and headed out with a map in my pocket.
It was an absolutely fantastic journey. The weather was glorious (I did get a little burned). I found my way to the epic and magnificent Ankor Wat - the most notorious of the temples in the area. After paying a dollar to leave my bike near some other bikes I took a look around, It was very spectacular, although as it was nearing lunch it was starting to get very busy.
Following Angkor wat I rode around a further 5 or 6 temples, some were vast and magnificent such as Angkor Thom which had huge ornate pillars with faces carved into the stone. Another was smaller but built into the jungle with trees growing through the crumbling walls, and networks of winding roots sprawling over the walls, paving and ground.

The bike came equipped with a manly pink basket

With weary legs from cycling all day I made my way back to the guesthouse. I saw Pat who was fairly embarrassed to admit that we was not able to join me on the ride as he had been... "confined to the toilet" shall we say. I made him feel better by describing what an amazing and unmissable time I had experienced.