Waking up feeling rather seedy from spending the night worshipping the porcelain goddess and driving the porcelain bus, Tim and I seek advice from our new tour leader, Jay, as to whether it'll be safe for Tim to take the 7 hour bus ride to Phnom Phen. After suggesting that it will be a better idea for us to continue to travel as a group, we pump Tim up with some Gastro-Stop and head for the bus.
The bus is a public bus this time. It's a large 52 seater bus which thankfully, has a toilet on board. The bus is surprisingly comfortable and we are given a snack for the road and a bottle of water. We spend a lot of the trip asleep, making up for the night before.
Upon crossing the border into Phnom Phen, we realise that the dry season is indeed very dry and very hot. The areas without grass basically looked like desert - dry and dusty.
We arrive in Phnom Phen itself and board our private bus to the guest house at which we are residing. On the bus, our guide tells us about the locals - and it doesn't take us long to discover that he is correct. Compared to Vietnam, the locals here are more aggressive in trying for sales. Majority of them, children included, have a good basic grasp of the english language and can speak it well. The rules are to say no if you don't want to buy something, don't haggle unless you intend to buy and do not say that you will come back later to make a purchase because if you don't the locals will be pissed. Children included. The children have been at this so long that if you don't purchase something from them immediately, they'll ask if you will come back later. And they will remember you.
Tim is still feeling rather unwell when we settle into the guest house so I head out with the others to the National Museum. The museum is rather small and not overly interesting to me personally as there are few explanations to the artefacts that are around.
After a rest at the hotel, we head out for dinner at a local restaurant.
The next day, we visit the S-21 Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. S-21 is the name given to the prison in which Pol Pot's prisoners were kept, tortured and questioned before being sent off to the killing fields.
Both places are confronting and a couple of our group members opted not to come along to it. Others were emotional at the sites. Both very reasonable when you realise that walking around the killing fields, you walk on the bones and clothing of the people who were killed at the site. There are a large number of excavated graves around the field and you can't help but feel sorry for the individuals who can still remember Pol Pots reign. Our local guide himself was a child at the time and was seperated from his parents and lost a number of his siblings. I am amazed that he does the job that he does, visiting the sites that could well be the very same place that his family members were killed.
After an emotional morning, we head back to the hotel for some rest. Tomorrow, we will ride the bus to Siem Reap.
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