Phnom Penh

With a banging on the door all hell breaks loose the next morning. The night before I had switched our cheap Chinese alarm off instead of on. Our pick up is outside pacing, he still has three more collections before getting us to the main bus station to catch our 7am, “super deluxe AC” to Phnom Penh.

Ten minutes later with vast amounts of luggage and sleepy children in tow we board the pick up which is a rickety old relic without windows. Louise and I have a good chuckle as we watch the horrified expressions of some Australians as we arrive to pick them up, “Hiya mate is this bus taking us to Vietnam”?

Another bus another journey, except now I’m (Lou) having an allergic reaction which started in Siem Riep in a small way just my arms were itchy, on the bus ride I was having an internal dialogue about what could be wrong, I would get these hot flashes somewhere on my body followed by intense itchiness, it would move all around, it was freaky.

By the time we get off the bus at Phnom Penh and the taxi drivers all attacked us I was ready to blow, which I eventually did, I mean come on they can see I’m with Craig and the boys and we are walking towards a tuk tuk , they still come into your face and say “madam tuk tuk , come with me!”

“CAN’T you see I’m with my husband and I have a tuk tuk, back (f>>K) off for god sake!” I yelled at them, Nicky told me later that they all were smiling and laughing at the mad woman ! Oh well! It's good to release some anger sometimes :)!

Craig decided to follow the 3 South African girls (mmm wonder why) who were staying in a budget guest house, oh help me god, so we had a look I thought, please no, we tried a few others which were just tooo expensive, said ok went back, jeeez Louise, it was horrid at R120 a night for all of us a dormitory room 4 single beds, lets just say it wasn’t the highlight of our trip. (…..It was great, clean rooms, cheap beer and food, lots of interesting travelers and we have to do at least one backpacker joint on the trip, part of the experience!)

Not to mention the itchiness was getting progressively worse and eventually I surrendered to the fantastic orgasmic scratching with my hairbrush, out of control I was doing myself serious harm, even the strong antihistamines Murray prescribed were doing nothing, I can only think it’s the MSG which Asians use in everything and I mean everything. The second night after nearly exfoliating my skin off, we stopped at a pharmacy and he said allergy (duh) Erticaria? Take these, cortisone, it did help but it took a while for it to go completely but by that stage would have taken anything to stop the itching, my god it’s terrible, and the worse thing is, msg is their salt.

Given Cambodia’s magnificent civilized past its recent history is horrific, 25-30% of their population were tortured, beaten and massacred just 30 years ago, their only crime being that they were educated, Pol Phot’s grand plan to develop an Agrarian utopia of subservient peasants

We decided to explore Phnom Penh and went to the war Museum, oh my god, thank goodness we didn’t go to the killing fields, Nicky said straight away that there were ghosts. What was once a school became a torture chamber where Pol Phot did the most horrendous things to anyone considered an enemy to their cause. I was creeped out and depressed, it is incredible brutality and they kept meticulous records with photo’s to prove it all. The fact that most of the leaders haven’t been brought to justice astounds me beyond anything, Pol Phot died of old age in exile a few years ago. The photographs are haunting. There is still something in the atmosphere in Cambodia, how can a country just continue after such a brutal time. There has been little retribution for the people who caused such pain, no reconciliation, just a get on with it and dry your tears kind of attitude.

A poem written by a prisoner explains that time so well (below)

That night we popped in to the Foreign Correspondence club to cheer up, a beautiful colonial building on the Mekong River as another tropical storm hit. To be sure this setting must be the inspiration behind the launch of a thousand novels.

We sat next to a Dutch girl, who was writing to her friends back home on why men are such bastards- she met a cool European man at a bar the previous night really hit it off was thrilled and then gave him her phone number, on the way out his Cambodian wife pops up and asked her why she wasn’t taking her husband home, it was fine with her as long as she used a condom!!!
She is in love with Phnom Penh and is here to teach English. She recommended that night’s restaurant a hip, trendy and organic place that supports training of Cambodians for the service industry – good food and sadly as always crazy expensive white wine.

We have a family vote to end the traveling and settle down somewhere in Bali for a while (surf beckoning). I was keen to carry on but the boys were tired and it was 3:1 Our last stop was Saigon (Ho Chi Min City) from where our flight was booked to Bali, hasty emails to Lawrence and Janine to see if we could join them, flight numbers and dates changed, we were set.