#4 phnom penh #5 siem reap

From Thailand we jumped on a minibus to cross the border into Cambodia. We decided to break up the journey with a one-night stay in Koh Krong, a Cambodian town near the border. And a good thing too, because day two of our border crossing took an epic 8.5 hours (after we were told it would only take 5 to 6 hours). It was one of those situations that started out really well, then rapidly deteriorated as the bus stopped to pick up more and more people till we were all crushed in like a tin of sardines...
But staying at the border town turned out to be a good experience. We met this Danish guy who comes to South East Asia for a holiday every year, and buys around 1,000 Valium pills each time which he sells for 150% profit in Copenhagen. We also chatted to a Cambodian moto driver, Sommank, who was a soccer fanatic and told Kris a visit to a prostitute cost 400 baht - that's, er, 16 dollars...
We'd met a few travellers in Thailand who'd didn't enjoy Cambodia, so I was a bit apprehensive about what it would be like, but when we finally drove into Phnom Penh I was pleasantly surprised by the vibrant energy of the city. Yes, it's dirty, frenetic and dusty, but it's also a testament to the resilience and cheerfulness of the Cambodian people (geez, don't I sound like a wanker?).
Anyway, suffice to say that although we were only in Phnom Penh for two days, we had a great time. We had one full day of sightseeing, where we visited the Tuol Seng/S21 torture museum (set in a school which the Khmer Rouge took over and used to torture people) which was haunting as the weapons of torture and photos of all the dead people were on display; next we went to the Killing Fields (where mass graves and the bodies of 8000 people were discovered), which was a bit disappointing as there were just holes in the ground and hardly anything else in the way of information; we followed this with a visit to a shooting range where we fired an AK47 rifle and a Colt 45 handgun leftover from the war between us. Now, I'm aware of the hypocrisy of visiting a shooting range right after seeing all these war atrocities, but, well... there's no way I can justify it, 'cept to say it was a rare opportunity and it was scary but exhilarating! The guns were so powerful that the sound of the shots really hurt our ears even though we were wearing ear muffs (is that what they're called?) and the kickback was pretty strong. The shooting range was set up illegally by some entrepreneurial soldiers and ex-soldiers looking to make a quick buck from surplus weapons (it cost us $30 for the AK47 and $15 for the handgun); you even have the option of shooting a rocket launcher ($200), a grenade (around $70) and an anti-aircraft missile ($100). Apparently, you can arrange to throw a grenade at a cow for a $400 package. Needless to say: we didn't choose that option!
I was pretty apprehensive before I had my turn at shooting, and I squeaked to one of the soldiers, "I'm so nervous!" and he looked at me with the cold bland stare of someone who'd shot people hundreds of times.
We also went to a charity cafe in Phnom Penh which helps street kids, and as I was paying our bill I noticed a copy of New Woman on the counter - it was the issue that I was in. So I opened it up and showed the cafe staff the pic of me, and they all acted so excited and impressed and got me to sign my picture in the mag. I suspect they were just humouring me, though.
We topped off this day of incongruities with some cocktails at Raffles' Elephant Bar for my birthday, before turning in for an early start on the road to Siem Reap...

# 5 siem reap
We'd heard from some other travellers that Siem Reap was "hot and dusty", and in that aspect it certainly didn't disappoint. Tourists lay inert and brow-beaten by the heat everywhere we went. We hired the services of an enterprising young moto driver, Vong (only 18 and already married), and set out on a two-day tour of the Angkor sites. Still blazingly hot at 4.30pm, we headed for our first Angkor temple visit to watch the sunset. The view was spectacular, not-so great were the thousands of tourists all crawling over the temple and elbowing each other to get the best view. Unfortunately Kris had a rather, um, untimely emergency on the hillside which he can fill you in on later (he said I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, dammit).
The next day we rather masochistically decided to leave for Angkor at 6am to catch the last rays of the sunrise. Although we were a bit late to watch the sun emerging over the horizon, it turned out to be good timing as hordes of Korean tourists were streaming out of the temple as we made our way in. Angkor Wat is an amazing structure, but we expected this; we were more surprised by the spooky beauty of Preah Khan temple - which was in ruins and being engulfed by the surrounding nature.
On our second night Kris shouted us to one night at a swish hotel for my birthday - La Residence D'Angkor. It was pretty sweet and we spent the day in the saltwater pool then stayed in and ordered room service and watch an old episode of Baywatch on cable TV. Bliss.