Discover Top Posts Tagged with #phenom penh

Rooster at Station 21, Phnom Penh, Cambodia ©TeenyTinyDinosaurFarm

At S21 in Phenom Penh, the Khmer Rouge incarcerated prisoners accused of conspiring with the FBI/CIA in the USA. 20,000 people were taken from here and killed at Choeng Ek the most well-known of the 330+ killing fields set-up across Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. Since there was fear among the killers that families would retaliate, they were rounded up and killed them as well.

I liked seeing this little bit of beauty, on the grounds of what had been a horrible torture center just 25 years ago.

#rooster #chicken #station 21 #killing fields #phenom penh #cambodia #asia #travel #©teenytinydinosaurfarm #beautiful #s21 #khmer rouge

Missing the beautiful country of Cambodia

#Cambodia #angkor wat #siem reap #phenom penh #travel #asia

Tuesday 19th May

Today was a very long day! We got up early, again, to get a coach from Phenom Penh, across Cambodia to Siem Reap. It took us 8 hours, through dry, dusty and a hot 43 degrees. Also most of the journey, there was Bollywood type music being played so loud, I felt like I was at an Indian wedding, it was awful. We made another stop in what seemed like the middle of the dessert, with more food being sold smothered in flies and other unrecognisable insects. How anyone can find any of the food appealing is just beyond me! And the toilets we're even worse than the other day! Hand sanitiser is a must if anyone is ever thinking of visiting these type of countries! After briefly dozing in and out of sleep we finally arrive at Siem Reap, we get off our coach and then jump in a tuk tuk to our hotel. We arrive and have to take our shoes off before entering which I think is weird, then walk around barefoot inside. After showering and sorting ourselves out, we venture into the town to get a feel of the place. Got some frozen yogurt on the way which was lovely and cooled us down a bit. It was the getting dark and we had a wonder around the night markets which are a hundred times cleaner than the markets in Phnom Penh, not a joint of meat or smell of fish water in sight! ☺️ Siem Reap is a small town compared to where we've just come from, but here it seems there's a tonne more white western people and a lot more western style food. Also I like this place better because it's loads cleaner than Phenom Penh and right in the middle of the town, so it's quick to walk to a shop if you need to. Then we head to a little local restaurant for diner ridiculously cheap once again, a local beer is just 50 cents! After dinner we walked around the markets again, I bought some crazy patterned trousers and we walked back to the hotel in the way back we found a place that sells 'happy pizza' so we might look into that one day 😝 Having an early night tonight because we've got a big day tomorrow, we're up and left by half 4 in the morning to go and see the sunrise at the Angkor Wat temple. I can't wait for this, it's the only reason we wanted to visit Cambodia in the first place!

#Cambodia #siem reap #phenom penh #angkor wat #temple #travel #explore #wanderlust #backpacks & business class

Sunday 17th May

Up early this morning to catch our coach to Cambodia, not much planned just a 6 hour journey, but hopefully we’ll sleep most of it as we never even went to bed, after coming in from the strange bars last night, we just stayed up because we had to be up at 6 anyway. I don’t feel that tired anyway, it doesn’t feel like we pulled an ‘all nighter’ 😂

We got on the coach and I can’t believe it’s got free wifi, it wasn’t a lot of good to be honest but our seats reclined and we had air conditioning as well what more could you want!? It was about 3 hours until we got to the Cambodia border, I stepped off of that coach and I can honestly say, I have never felt heat like it!

We had to get our visa, it seemed like a funny carry on, you had to give your passport and money to a man on the bus, he then took it too someone else inside the building which they then sorted it for you and you have to wait for your name to be called before you can get through to the other side. By the way people in this part of the world don’t know the meaning of the word 'queue’ it’s ridiculous, they’re so ignorant they just barge you out the way. So whilst my name has been called, the other girls had already been called and gone through the other side, I collect my passport from the man, give it to another man to check it and then walk outside to get back on the coach.

In the meantime I had my handbag across me and my small backpack on my front, because there was so many people, you just never know.. So I walk outside and I can’t see the girls, one side of me there’s a man trying to take my passport from me, the other side of me an old woman is trying to thieve my handbag, I grabbed a hold of it and pushed her all up the wall, she screwed her face up and walked away. But still this man wants my passport and I don’t understand this country, why should give it to him? I don’t know who he is, a woman wants my bag, a man wants my passport, it’s no wonder they didn’t have scissors at the ready, wanting my blonde hair! All the while it’s 38 degrees, I don’t know where to go, it was all too much, then I saw Katie & Lucia and they assured me it was okay to give the man my passport. Thank god that was over, back on the coach we go..

We did have to get off again, about ¼ of a mile up the road, to get our passports checked again, have our fingerprints done and also our temperature checked. The things you have to go through to feel like you want to die in this outrageous heat! I felt like I was in an oven, I really did! Back we get on the coach for about 5 miles more and we stop again, this time for people to get something to eat in a local I don’t even know what you call it to be honest, it wasn’t a restaurant, nor a garage, just a big hall with dogs laid about, rice being cooked in the corner, women selling warm drinks and nuts. Weird.

It got worse when we went to the toilets, I felt like how I imagining it feeling like on 'banged up abroad’ honestly it was the dirtiest, scruffiest toilet I’d ever been in, it felt like I was in prison 😂 but if it’s good enough for the Cambodians, it will have to be good enough for us 😳

After we got over our toilet epidemic, back on the coach we go, as we drive further into Cambodia, I can see it’s exactly as I expected. Dirty, poor, hot all the rest of it. We arrived in Phenom Penh bus station and got a tuk tuk to our hotel, checked in, had a shower and then when to see some sights.

Now it’s half 4 in the afternoon and 43 degrees, the sun is burning me like I can’t explain, we’ve been out for half an hour and I already need another shower 🙈 but we carry on for a couple of hours, got some frozen yogurt and went up to a roof top bar over looking the Mekong river as it got dark. After a while we got some food in a local restaurant, I just had garlic bread, the heat makes me not want to eat, shortly after we came back to our hotel..

Got a big day tomorrow, getting up early to visit the genocide museum & the killing fields. It’s all fun and games!

#genocide museum #phenom penh #the killing fields #Cambodia #travel #adventure #Southern East Asia #wanderlust #backpacks & business class #blog

Phenom Penh

As soon as we got off the bus we were greeted by a host of tuk tuk drivers and jumped in with one of them and told him where we wanted to go. Everything in the city was very much closed and it seemed a bit deserted so we were feeling a bit sketched out. Soph also immediately got a bad vibe from the tuk tuk driver but we rolled with it because we were so desperate for bed. "Snake eyes" as we refer to him as, took us to 88 Backpackers where we were booked in for the next day but not that day, but everything seemed shut down so he told us he knew somewhere where we could go so took us there. When we got off the tuk tuk we asked him how much and he said $20. Twenty bloody dollars (about £15). We were absolutely stunned and thought immediately that this guy is trying to mug us off. We eventually managed to get him down to $10 which was still above and beyond what we should have paid but we just wanted to go to bed. He then followed us in the guesthouse asking if we wanted a drink and telling us we were beautiful. A word of advice for you Snake Eyes, don't tell any girl she's beautiful when she's just spent over a day on a grimey coach, her hair is a grease ball knotted on her hear and she is covered in god knows what as she will know you're either blind, chatting shit or after something! So after a good nights sleep in the hostel owned by Snake Eye's friends we got up and checked out as soon as possible to head to 88 Backpackers. Snake Eyes was waiting ready to take us and probably mug us off. We tried to get in another tuk tuk but the owner was having none of it, so Snake Eyes took us there for $2. We were so frosty with him though so I think he got the picture. We can be frosty babes if we have to. When we pulled up we were excited to be going to our new hostel, however, just as we arrived there was a man standing in the middle of the road with dirty jeans, no shoes and covered in blue paint on his body and face. He started saying something to me and then he threw a flick knife covered in a plastic cover at the tuk tuk at us. Honestly, this kind of shit can only happen to us! As I was trying to get off the tuk tuk he tried to get on still talking and singing at me. I literally bolted it into the safety of the hostel and couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. I'm happy to report that we didn't see the painted man again. We checked in, dumped our stuff and acquired a new tuk tuk driver who didn't have snakey eyes to take us round the city so we could get our bearings. We went to the market and had a mooch about and then went to this beautiful temple and bought some flowers to place inside and some incense to light outside the temple. The tuk tuk driver then drove us along the Mekong river and left us to have a walk along and we arranged for him to pick us up at 10 the next day to take us to the killing fields and S21 because he had been a babe and not snakey and we trusted him. There's lots of lovely little bars and places to eat and it has a really nice vibe. We were in desperate search of somewhere in the sun, but the thing about Asia is that every bloody bar that could potentially be in the sun has something keeping it in the shade. So for sun chasers like Soph and myself, it often proves difficult for us to have a chill in a garden in the sun (not like pub gardens at home!). We eventually settled on a place on the river called The Titanic. For me this was great 'cause I fucking love The Titanic and it also reminded me of my Topshop pal Louise who I used to quote it with at work. The place actually had one end that was a ship. Amazing. We found the only sunny spot outside and chilled with a few drinks. That night we opted for some traditional Cambodian food back at our hostel. Soph had a fish Amok curry and I had a beef Lac Loc that had an egg on top! They were both delicious.

#Phenom penh #travelling #Cambodia

The road to Phenom Penh

We're currently on a 6 hour (*we broke down so it turned into a 9 hour) bus journey so I decided to write a little update in my notes section and post it later. We've been pretty useless so far so I thought I'd write about something more recent and maybe come back to tell you about the rest. So everything between Chiang Mai and Laos can be a bit of a mystery for the time being but maybe we will fill you in on that later. So before we tell you about our wonderful experience in Phenom Penh, we need to give you a bit of a background story on how we ended up here. We spent a few wonderful days being wild in Vang Vieng going tubing two days in a row, drinking magical milkshakes and generally getting up to mischief with a group of really awesome people we'd picked up along the way in Pai and Luang Prabang. So because of this, and us being us, we got swept up in everything and completely forgot to sort out our visas for Vietnam, which had to be sorted before we arrived. However, we were told it wouldn't be a problem to sort them in the capital of Laos, Vientiane. So we got the bus to Vientiane and booked into a hostel for the night feeling rather delirious after our time in Vang Vieng. The next morning we got up early and ready to head out to the embassy to arrange our visas as our flight was that night. We got to reception and the guy on reception told us he could arrange our visas that day and they would be back by 4pm. Perfect we thought. One quick phone call later and our hopes are dashed as he informs us that because of Vietnamese new year, the embassy had closed the previous day and would not reopen until the 6th February. Over a week away. Fuck. We were waiting for him to say a 'but' but it never came. We were feeling pretty exhausted and just wanted to get out of Vientiane (we'd heard lots of horror stories of people being pick pocketed and having their bags cut of their backs so didn't feel particularly safe and to be frank it's a bit of a dump) so our next option was to go to Cambodia first and then Vietnam, rather than the other way round as initially planned. The only devastating thing about this was that we had met two fabulous Irish girls in Luang Prabang and had planned to rejoin them in Vietnam for new year, so our reunion has had to be put on hold. So we cancelled he flights and booked onto the 36 hour sleeper bus to Phenom Penh. 36 hours. I mean really. I don't know what we were thinking but we just desperately wanted to have a plan and get out of Vientiane. So that evening we boarded a sleeper bus towards the boarder. The sleeper bus was jokes. It's basically rows of teeny bunk beds and it's two people per bed. So Soph and I snuggled up and slept (with my knees digging into her back because I'm too tall for everything in Asia) until we arrived near the boarder the next morning. We got another bus, sorted our visas and waited at the boarder with a lot of confusion to get our next bus to Phenom Penh. By the time we got on the right bus, all the seats were taken or had bags on and we were standing in the aisles thinking.. Are we really going to stand for 11 hours in this aisle? Then low and behold they started handing out plastic stalls (not dissimilar to the one my five year old niece uses to stand on to do her teeth), so it looked like this was our seat for the journey. What started as 4 of us in the aisle soon turned into 20 as we picked more and more people along the way. The journey was "interesting" to say the least. Because the roads are like dirt tracks it felt like the bus was being driven by Sandra Bullock in Speed or that we were on one of those simulator things you go on at Thorpe Park. Whichever is worse.