A capital, a sleepy riverside town and the beach!

Note: Some of the following may have been altered for entertainment purposes.

On the bus journey to Phnom Penh we stopped off at a service station, well by the side of a road of stalls in a small town. One of the delicacies on offer were bugs and lots of them. Huge barbequed spiders, spiced crickets and cockroaches.

Mmmmmm

 They looked delicious, I couldn't wait to try them so we ordered a bagful of each and proceeded to munch and crunch our way through the whole selection in less than 20 minutes. The spiders were the real treat, Thai Sweet Chilli Sensations step aside as my favourite snack Spiders and bugs are now number 1. 


Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and lies where the Tonle Sap river meets the Mekong. It is a much bigger and busier city then the small town of Siem Reap we came from. We arrived early afternoon and after a quick stop for some street food we went to our guesthouse where I luckily caught a rerun of the Chelsea Man City match, good result for us (shame about the Wigan game). For dinner we visited 'Friends' a restaurant that is run by a charity and all the employees are kids taken from a life on the street and taught a trade. Once they become trained they turn teacher to the new intake and then most graduate to hotels and restaurants in the area. As well as being a good cause the food was amazing and the main reason for its popularity.

Half eaten meal

The food was that good we forgot to take a photo till half way through, at which point we had already demolished the beef tacos.

There isn't a great deal to do in Phnom Penh sight seeing wise. We spent our first day there walking around the city, we visited a market where we bought a memory card reader to make updating our blog quicker...Doesnt work, two cheap watches...The water resistant marking on the back had already smudged and stained Leanne's wrist after 5 minutes, safe to say they will be going nowhere near water. After our shopping trip we had some street food and then Pandan cake. Those of you unawares to the joys of Pandan cake are seriously missing out.

Now those of you who know me know how much I love chocolate cake but this is a serious contender to best cake (Obviously a Sara Lee Gateau would still be the best) and at only 25p we couldn't resist one each day we were in Phnom Penh.

On our walk down the river we came across this street side 'gym'. I gave some of the machines a go, trying to keep my body in its peak physical condition, whilst working out a little child began using them and started to compete with me. Leanne claims he won but it was an unfair contest as he was on home soil!

Anyway on a more serious note the next day we visited the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison. We explained in the previous blog about Cambodia's recent history and the Killing Fields were where thousands of innocent civilians were executed. On the surface it seems like such a peaceful place, long grasses, a lake and an orchard but when you know what it really it then is anything but. You can still see the depressions in the earth where mass graves once were and in rainy season it is not uncommon for bones and rags to get washed up in the graves. The worst part was a huge tree that, in order to save on expensive ammunition, children and babies were smashed against and then tossed in the grave. The first people to find this site claim that there was still blood, brains, hair and tooth fragments on the bark of the tree. There is now a memorial building here to remember all those that lost their lives, inside it stands a 30ft glass case which houses thousands of skulls, bones and rags that have been found here. We only took one picture here as it isn't really the place to go snap happy but we thought one of the memorial would give an indication of the place.

The Prison was where the Khmer Rouge kept their prisoners before transporting them to the Killing Fields. It was another chilling place, once a school it was transformed into something a lot darker. The classrooms became many cells measuring only a 4ft by 8ft that housed the prisoners and exercise yards were used as arenas for torture. Now half a museum there are many photographs of all the prisoners, when they arrived they all had to get one taken. The most disturbing ones are of small children and ones showing tortured bodies.

Now back to a lighter tone, we headed to the small riverside town of Kampot. It is a world away from all we saw in Phnom Penh, a peaceful place a relaxed feel about it. We spend two days here not doing much, we rented bicycles one day to ride around and explore the town. After a night out at a bar further up river with some live music recommend to us by our tuk tuk driver. We met him there later on with his english girlfriend who just graduated from Cambridge and moved to Cambodia against her parents will while they were on holiday. Getting back at 1am we found the gates to our guesthouse closed and locked. We had no alternative but to scale the wall, I was impressed with Leanne's never before seen climbing ability. One wrong move could have proved fatal!

The Wall - It seemed a lot bigger in the dark and the tiles on top were loose.

 We are now in the seaside town of Sihanoukville and we have spent the last two days doing nothing but lying on the beach, swimming and relaxing...it feels so good! We sat and watched the sunset on the beach the first night with 30p beers and barbequed barracuda, not often you get the chance to do that in December.

A panoramic view of the beach

Leanne enjoying a mid-afternoon dip

Another beautiful sunset - The best yet!

Tomorrow we are off to a tropical island 2 hours off the coast of Cambodia called Koh Rong/Rung. So we will be spending the next 3 nights in a beach front bungalow, our last night being Leanne's Birthday. We then head to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam on Christmas eve so this is probably our last blog before Christmas so we wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope St Nick is good to you all. We have sent all of you presents in the post but I have heard some stories about the Cambodia postal service being a bit dodgy during the festive period so lets hope they reach you (;