Cambodia

All the reports we'd heard from friends who'd been to Cambodia pretty much amounted to - "You HAVE to go to Angkor Wat" and "Cambodia is poor as fcuk"...from our 5 day jaunt I think they were spot on. The journey from Saigon to Phnom Penh was a bit of a struggle because once we crossed the border the roads almost instantly turned from fairly decent roads to dirty, bumpy roads...welcome to Cambodge!

We found ourselves a cool little hostel near the lake which was choc-full of backpacker comforts - DVD player, Bar (50 cent a beer), Restaurant, Internet Cafe etc. We organised for a tuk-tuk driver to bring us on a day-long tour of the city including trips to the Killing Fields, S-21 Prison and the Rushian Market but he got really stroppy when we declined his invitation to go to a shooting range where you can fire rocket launchers and grenades (at $200 a pop) at cows ($50 a pop which you need to purchase from a local farmer) - after firing an AK-47 in Vietnam I think our bloodlust was satisfied enough.

The Killing Fields are a bit grim to be honest. What would astound as much as the piles of skulls & bones is the reasoning Pol Pol provided for killing an estimated 2 million of his own people. You were killed if the Khmer Rouge didn't like you, if you didn't work yourself to the bone, if you were educated, if you spoke Vietnamese, if you had a Vietnamese friend...it looks like you had to try pretty hard just to stay alive!

The notorious Tuol Sleng prison (known as S-21), an old high school converted into a prison to house, interrogate and torture prisoners (prior to them being sent to the killing fields), is a pretty bare, run-down site which shows little signs of the horrific acts which went on there. The most interesting sight there is probably the room full of hundreds of photos of men, women and children who passed through the prison on their way to the killing fields.

Because we needed to make it back to Bangkok by the 10th August to collect our stolen credit cards (kindly brought over to us by Walshy's buddy Mark) we could only spend 5 days in Cambodia so we belted on to Siem Reap pretty quickly. The only sight worth getting off your lazy ass for in Siem Reap are the temples at Angkor, built in the 12th century by the Khmer empire, Angkor Wat is the the worlds largest religious building and some of the minor temples have been used in the tomb raider movies. I did spend 8 hours trying to track down a seat that Angelina Jolie may have sat down on after a particularly sweaty scene but no luck..

What may even surpass Angkor Wat is the Angkor What? bar, it's a great spot for a ridiculous session & practically every available space is covered in graffiti, a touch of class.

The journey from Siem Reap to the Cambodian-Thai border was hell on earth. Crappy little bus, no air-con, non-stop bumps and a monster hangover..horrible stuff. We'll never learn though, the urge to get hammered ahead of a 12 hour bus trip in the sun is always too much for us...it's time to hit the beaches of Thailand & get re-acquainted with an old friend, buckets of super-strength whiskey & coke.