Phnom Penh

We reached Phnom Penh in the afternoon and it was stifling! We didn't expect the increase in temperature and were glad we had air conditioning at the hostel. The first night we met up with the Belgium's and ended up in a Australian pub with a free bar and some live music. Good start to Phnom Penh.

Our first full day was spent doing the two main tourist attractions, the killing fields and the genocide museum. Though they are dark and morbid, the experience was a real eye opener into the Khmer Rouge regime. They were responsible for mass genocide and killed one in four Khmer people. The regime killed the majority of educated people, anyone against the Khmer Rouge regime and anyone with affiliations to the so called traitors. People that didn't suffer death had to work the fields, farming mostly rice and living off two bowls of rice porridge a day. The Cambodian people had a choice, be part of the regime and work in extreme conditions or be subjected to the killing fields. The regime is so hated that the Cambodian people now pronounce their identities differently. Instead of Khmer they pronounce themselves as "Khmar", but the word is still spelt the same.

The reason for so many deaths was the Khmer Rouge killed all family members of anyone they executed. This was so that they would have no potential enemies in the future. Although the Khmer people have been through such atrocities, the people are incredibly friendly and very warm hearted.

We visited the genocide museum next. Set up in an old prison called S-52. The buildings were converted from a school into a holding area for people who were inevitably going to the killing fields. In a way this was more disturbing than the killing fields, with dark rooms, long corridors and small brick cells, the buildings send shivers down your spine.

The rest of Phnom Penh is pretty nice. It has a good night life, some tasty food and some great backpacker hostels. We stayed at the White Rabbit, which was owned by an American, Kiwi and a Khmer lady; this gave the place a really relaxed feel and was a good base to explore the city from. Not forgetting to mention the hostel cat... Jerry. Permanently asleep, you would find him behind doors, in corners, on the bar (!) and even once on our bed.

Tuk tuk drivers generally don't know where they are going and often you need a detailed map with directions to get anywhere in Cambodia. We found this out when trying finding the Myanmar embassy. Luckily we stumbled upon it in the end! We found that it would take six days to process the visas, so we decided to go to Koh Rong and Otres Beach on the south coast to fill the void of time.