Phnom Penh and saying goodbye to Cambodia

The bus down to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh was pretty easy going and when we arrived in the city and disembarked we had the usual onslaught of tuk-tuk drivers clamouring for our business. 

As I was still a little fragile after my recent illness, we'd booked ourselves a room in another comfortable-looking hotel and so had the most persuasive/relentless driver take us from the bus station to our new accommodation.

The journey was an interesting introduction to Phnom Penh traffic. We held on tight to our luggage as our driver squeezed between other vehicles, whizzed across roundabouts and dodged precarious pedestrians. 

We distracted ourselves with the incredible sights around us: a man and woman on a moped, the latter of whom was holding over her head the drip belonging to the toddler squeezed between them; the moped with the half-dozen or so plucked chickens strung over the handlebars; the in-tuk-tuk advertisements for trips to such places as the historic 'Killing Fields' and local shooting ranges (illustrated with photos of smiling tourists toting RPGs).

We arrived at the Lucky Star hotel unscathed - always a nice suprise! - and checked into a big double room with all the modcons we needed. 

The next day we ventured out to do a little sightseeing. I was feeling a lot better and although we were still taking things relatively easy, it was great to feel free to explore again.

First stop, after breakfast, was the Independence Monument, which sits in the middle of a busy intersection. It was built in the 1950s to commemorate Cambodia's new freedom from the French and there's not really anything to do there, but the weather was beautiful that day and we spent some time walking in the park near the monument.

We then had a bit of a sweaty walk to find a tuk-tuk (never a difficult task unless you're actually looking for one) to take us to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

The museum is the latest guise of a group of buildings that during the Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s was converted from a high school into Security Prison 21 (S-21). During its darkest days it was a place of torture and murder - an estimated 20,000 people died here under horrific conditions - and is now used to educate visitors about the atrocities that the Cambodian people were subjected to. I'm glad we went, as it wouldn't have felt right being in Phnom Penh without learning about what had happened here such a short time ago. We'd spent time among the stunning ancient history of the Khmer people around Angkor, and it was important for us to know about the more recent history that has left just as tangible a legacy on Cambodia as those breathtaking temples. But it wasn't exactly a fun day out for all the family. 

The museum is bleak and stark and terrifying and teaches us about the darkest possibilities of the human condition. There were parts that I wasn't able to stomach, and so I spent a while sitting in the open while Dave continued around the exhibits, but the place is so imbued with the echoes of what went on there, and what I'd already seen had made such a vivid impression, that it wasn't possible to escape the realities just by sitting quietly in the sunshine - rather it gave me time to reflect on how Cambodia has come so far in such a short time after losing so much.

We left emotionally exhausted and decided that that was enough sightseeing for one day. The Killing Fields were another option, but we knew from the guidebooks what it was going to entail and so made the decision that we'd immersed ourselves enough in the country's dark past. 

As we rode back to our hotel in a tuk-tuk we picked up outside the museum the Cambodian traffic craziness struck again and we were involved in our second crash! Not quite as dramatic and life threatening as our last one thank goodness, but our driver wasn't paying enough attention, accelerated too soon at a green light and smashed his wing mirror into the head of an old guy on a motorcycle (fortunately he was wearing a helmet). As our driver and the injured party - along with a little boy who was on the front of his bike - pulled round the nearest corner to discuss the incident, Dave and I gently extricated ourselves from the situation by leaving the tuk-tuk and walking off down the road before jumping into the next one that came along.

That evening, desperately in need of some comfort from the extremities of life 'on the road', we headed to a place called Freebird Bar & Grill. The diner is decked out with plenty of Americana and has a good atmosphere. We drank draft beer and chowed down on the free peanuts and popcorn that the friendly staff kept bringing to our table, not to mention the tasty burger and chili we had. In total our bill came to about US$16 - you always pay more for Western food than you would for eating local dishes but in this instance it was so worth it. We left very full and satisfied.

The next day we headed to the Central Market to do a little shopping. We found a place for some coffee to give us a much-needed morning boost before heading in to tackle the sprawling complex of stalls. Everything from flowers, fresh fruit and veg, meat and fish, clothes, homewares, jewellery, souvenirs, toys... you name it! 

There were even women taking advantage of the crowds by carrying round pairs of bathroom scales and charging people to weigh themselves! 

I invested in a pair of 'Ali Baba' pants - baggy, floral, low-crotched trousers that are ubiquitous amongst the backpacker community and more importantly that were long and comfortable enough to cover the still quite angry-looking red marks on the backs of my legs that the shingles had left behind.

One really nice surprise that came about while we were in Phnom Penh was that my cousin, uncle and aunt were coincidentally in town for a wedding. It was really exciting to arrange a meet-up in such an exotic, far-flung place and also really good to see familiar friendly faces after what had already been about two and a half months away from home.

We met up for dinner with Andrea, Trevor and Muriel at a yummy restaurant called Anjali near the riverfront and had a good catch-up over bottles of Anchor lager and plates of stir-fried dishes like chili and lemongrass chicken. Andrea had brought us an incredibly welcome care package comprising a huge box of Nurofen Plus (you can't get codeine in Cambodia!), a squeezy tub of Marmite and a bottle of Doom Bar ale. Oh sweet purveyor of blissful treats, how you spoiled us!

After dinner, us kids split off to a nearby bar for more beers, parent-free chat, and so Dave could watch that evening's Arsenal v QPR match. Such fun, random times! At about 2am we decided a short walk down to the Royal Palace was a good idea, as we weren't able to visit during the days as King Sihanouk was currently lying in state. The grounds were still full of people paying their respects even at that hour. 

Then it was back into another tuk-tuk to take us to our respective hotels. When we'd dropped Andrea off and were barrelling down the near-deserted roads we passed a sight that, like our two RTAs, had seemed kind of unavoidable since we'd first set wheel on a Cambodian road. A man had been knocked off his bike and killed and our tuk-tuk driver thought it appropriate at that moment to slow down as we passed the poor man's body, thereby joining the multitude of people who had paused to take photos on their mobile phones. Eyes shut, I shouted 'Please... GO!' and he stepped on the gas again, my first ever sighting of a dead body seared onto my retinas. 

Phnom Penh was our last stop in Cambodia, a country that has relatively recently undergone horrors that wiped out huge chunks of its population. This isn't the place for an in-depth analysis of a nation's scarred psyche, yet it does seem to have a bizarre disregard for keeping its citizens safe, considering everything they've been through to survive. More than anywhere I've been, Cambodia left me feeling nerve-jangled and harassed. It's a beautiful country, but nowhere else have I ever genuinely feared for my life whenever stepping outside of the safety of my hotel room!

A thriving tourist industry fuelled by stunning ancient temples, cheap entertainment, good weather and a fascinating culture working to reestablish itself in the aftermath of tragedy, isn't showing any signs of slowing and I'm sure the country has a bright future; we had a lot of great experiences in Cambodia and met some truly lovely people, but I do have to admit that I was kind of relieved to say goodbye.

Every little helps, Bangkok style

One (admittedly odd) highlight of our first stay in Bangkok was a quick trip to Tesco. It's funny how something that's so mundane at home takes on a whole new level of novelty and excitement when you're on the other side of the world. 

The chain has a relatively big presence in Thailand, giving itself an added element of Asian mystique by adding 'Lotus' to the end of its name. There's a big branch not far from The Jim Thompson House (see last post) so we popped down there on the hunt for handwash detergent (tired of washing pants with shower gel) and a mosquito net.

I've always found foreign supermarkets fascinating and most of the fun we had came from browsing the multitude of bizarre Thai foodstuffs:

Like crisps, but really not.

'Win'. 'Delicious & good taste'. Neither of these descriptions of fried cuttlefish rang true with us TBH.

ALL the industrial strength Red Bull.

Crab stick danishes. I don't care if they're only 10TBH, it's a 'no'.

Angry Birds chicken balls. I can't believe these haven't caught on in the UK!

After all that, you're going to need a breath & BELLY mint!

Not even in our wildest dreams did we imagine we'd find something so perfect.

So, travelling. It's not all snorkelling, temples, festivals and wildlife... sometimes all it takes is a trip to the local supermarket to blow your mind.

P.S. We managed to get hold of the detergent too: Cross Super Laundry Liquid Detergent. It's great and now our pants smell fabulous.

Our first stop in Bangkok

After seven weeks in Indonesia it was time for us to move onto mainland South East Asia. From Gili Air, we used our magic piece of paper to get us back to Bali, via Lombok, and stayed in Padang Bai for a couple of nights (at Beach Inn 1, which was quieter and cheaper than Marco's) before catching a bus up to Denpasar for our flight to Bangkok.

The plan was to stay in BKK for 4/5 days to run some errands. We needed visas for Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos; more malaria medication; and various essentials we hadn't been able to get hold of on our tiny island. Even though leaving the Gilis was a little traumatic, we were actually looking forward to being back in a proper city for a few days... massively shallow and probably immoral, but all I wanted was to eat Maccy D's and go to the cinema!

Our flight, via Hong Kong, was a piece of cake and we landed in BKK in the very early hours. So it was straight into a taxi from the airport to our guesthouse, Baan Hualamphong. When we arrived, dropped off by our very cheerful female driver, we were told that the room we'd booked was full so we'd be put in an aircon room for no extra charge. Fine by us! Especially considering the weather, even at 2am, felt like being in a steam room.

We paid 520THB per night (about £10.50) and got a big room with two double beds (incredibly hard mattresses), A/C, fridge, private bathroom, towels and loo roll provided. Breakfast was included too and was good, provided you like toast and fried eggs (the only option). Also, we soon discovered that the location of our guesthouse was excellent - not too close to the crazy tourist part of town but really near the Hua Lamphong Metro station, so it was a perfect base for exploring the city.

And what a city it is. One thing I was beginning to learn on our travels was that preconceptions are pretty much useless. I've never been interested in visiting Thailand, least of all Bangkok, which I was under the impression was some sort of unbearably dirty, seedy slum. As far as I was concerned we'd get in, do the necessary jobs, and get out as fast as we could. What did I know?? It's a fabulous, vibrant, thriving, modern metropolis. I fell madly in love with this place and, mainly due to my enthusiasm, we ended up staying for 10 days.

It turned out, after much internet research (with WiFi pilfered from the cafe across the road from our room), that we didn't need to organise our three visas ahead of time and would be better off just getting them all at the respective borders. So we threw ourselves into our other missions, namely: shopping and eating.

One of our first stops was to the MBK mall (one of about, oh, a MILLION!) We founds Boots - an exciting reminder of home - and bought the rest of the malaria tablets we needed to get us through Asia. We also purchased our first pot of Tiger Balm, which we soon realised is an absolute essential; great relief from mosquito bites and various other ailments - although we're still to figure out how it can cure flatulence, as it claims on the label... just rub some under your nose perhaps?? MBK was also our first encounter with the glorious phenomenon of 'Asian tat' - shops and stalls full of coloured plastic, grinning cartoon characters, cutesy animals, and unironic bling. Plus on the sixth floor, they have a great foodhall where there's a huge variety of cuisines available for bargain prices. You buy vouchers and then swap them for a meal; the best we found was the vegetarian stall where you choose three delicious dishes for 50THB (about £1).

We ate very well in Bangkok. The area called Siam is full of hip young things (BKK is so much more fashionable than I would've expected too!) and we had some good food around here (between my bouts of drooling over the shops and market stalls full of clothes I couldn't afford to buy). 

We treated ourselves one night to the Hard Rock Café, gorging ourselves on meat and various deep fried accompaniments. We also went to Som Tam Nua for the eponymous green papaya salad, plus excellent chicken wings, fried fish and sticky rice.

We took the extremely cheap and fun river taxi down to the Khaosan Road area where we bought a knock-off copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & Northern Thailand, and stopped off for a lunch of som tam, tom yum kung (a hot and sour prawn soup), chicken noodle soup and spring rolls. Most of what we ate in BKK was supremely spicy (after all that bland Indonesian food, everything we ordered in Thailand had to be swimming in chili) and when we told the waitress we wanted our dishes 'Thai spicy' not 'tourist spicy' she agreed, but kept coming back to our table during our meal to check we were ok!

Even though I came travelling with grand ideas of eating street food everywhere we went, the multitude of stalls lining the pavements were rarely all that appetising once we'd considering how long the edibles had been sat in the open or how much diesel fume had choked them. So we didn't really delve into that culinary adventure.

We did push our boundaries with some stuff that was kind of odd though: raw prawns and sun-dried beef (both really delicious) at a place called Heap with our friend Toby. This was also when we discovered that pork fried rice in Thai is pronounced 'cow pat moo', so we'll never go hungry as we'll never forget that! We also had dinner with our friend Josie, who introduced us to pomelo, a big citrus fruit that we had as a yummy salad.

Also, bubble tea, which comes in all kinds of flavours but is basically flavoured milk with chewy balls in it and an extra wide straw so you can suck them through. I had a chocolate one. It was awesome.

The Paragon Shopping Centre is the high-end mall where all the posh designer stores are: Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Mulberry, Chanel, H&M. Yep, you read that right. We were accidentally there for the grand opening of the first Bangkok H&M store and it was a frenzy! Hundreds of people queuing out of the door, mums taking photos of their kids in front of the signage. Hilarious. 

Our main reason for visiting Paragon was to go to the cinema though. We'd heard really good things about the Bangkok multiplexes, especially the big comfy seats and the glorious air conditioning. We saw Dredd on a massive digital screen with great sound, and ate our body weight in Häagen-Dazs. All for about £4.20 each. A great indulgence after a month on an Indonesian desert island in the middle of nowhere!

The weather was sweltering the whole time we were in the city so opportunities to escape inside to air conditioned comfort of shopping malls and cinemas were extremely welcome. It broke one night though, with a spectacular storm right over the top of our guesthouse, and woke us up with some of the loudest thunder and brightest lightning either of us had ever encountered. It lit the room up like it was midday and came through our eyelids to wake us up! It was still ridiculously hot and muggy the next morning though.

As well as shopping and eating, we did do some sightseeing. We had a lovely afternoon at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, looking round the galleries of brilliant Thai artworks and chatting to a young artist called Kan who was selling some of his drawings in the public space.

The Jim Thompson House was also really interesting. He was an American who settled in Thailand and set up a huge silk empire (before going missing in Malaysia) and you can look around his gorgeous 1950s Bangkok residence. It was a very interesting little tour and a really nice way to spend an hour or two, looking around the gardens and his collection of artifacts.

One evening we had a speedy walk through the Patpong area, constantly dodging the invitations to ping pong shows. We didn't feel the need to linger, as the 'sexpats' (dodgy old white men enjoying the company of beautiful young Thais) were quite noticeable enough without going looking for them.

We mostly got around the city using the BST (skytrain) and Metro systems. They were fast, easy and cheap... a bit like the girls in Patpong!!! Sorry. 

Ahem! The trains are pretty entertaining in themselves, with constant adverts showing on the overhead TVs and priceless people-watching opportunities. Sometimes there's more than just watching too... like with the friendly old guy who told me about his massage business, said I was very 'modern' looking and then nodded knowingly when I said I was from London, then gave me his card and kissed me on the cheek before disembarking.

All of this urban sprawl got a bit much in the end though, and Dave especially was getting antsy and keen to move on. So, knowing we'd be back to my 'new favourite city' in a couple of months, we booked ourselves onto a bus to Aranya Prathet at the Cambodian border and left for country number three.