We had visions of the ten of us, plus Sam, squashed inside a knackered out old rickety bus with local Cambodians, their chickens and pigs, clambering along the dirt road, holding on for dear life, while all our bags were loosely strapped to the roof and sides, barely hanging on. Oh and by this point I had two bags, having bought another one the night before to accommodate all my latest purchases and any others I may be tempted to buy!
So you can imagine what a relief it was when a large coach pulled up outside our hotel and Sam told us that we had seats booked on it!
We climbed on board, it was packed with other travellers and a film was being shown to help pass the time on our long journey. The film was in English, but it had been dubbed in Cambodian (Khmer)! But luckily there were English sub-titles, but half them were missing as the picture was too big for the screen!
And we were off, heading towards the border. It took over an hour just to get out of Saigon whilst trying to avoid all the oncoming motorbikes and then we finally reached the edge of Vietnam. We climbed off the coach, got our passports stamped as we were checked out of the country, then piled back on the bus for literally one minute as we passed through 'No Mans Land' and entered Cambodia, then we clambered off the bus, bought our visas, got our finger prints taken and climbed back on the bus for another two minutes, when we had to get off the bus put on a life jacket walk onto a car ferry and wait in 36 degrees of heat and watch as our coach pulled up and parked beside us.
The ferry crossed over the Mekong River, the coach pulled off the ferry and we were allowed back on - sans Life Jacket - and travelled another fifteen minutes to our hotel.
By this point we had already been approached by quite a few people begging for money, of which a large proportion were children. This was something that had not been that obvious on our trip so far. And we all immediately realised, with sadness, that Cambodia must be the poorest of all the Indo-China countries.
We got to our hotel and immediately embarked on our Cyclo city tour of the capital - Phnom Penh. And just as in Vietnam, we had to avoid the onslaught of motorbikes firing up and down the roads.
Phnom Penh (Hill of Penh) was named after a dear old lady, who, as legend has it, discovered four Buddha images along the bank of The Mekong River. She placed them on a nearby hill and from there the city grew.
Sat on the front of our cyclos, we were taken past The Royal Palace and The Silver Pagoda. The palace was a hive of activity as the King of Cambodia had passed away, back in October and his funeral was to be held next week in February! As we passed by we couldn't help but notice the hundreds of people gathered on the grass outside the palace gates, all crouched down in prayer. Sam told us they were 'moaning' over the late king. Which wasn't totally wrong as that is what their group chanting did sound like, however what he did in fact mean was that they were 'mourning' over the King!
We went fleetingly past the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument built in 1979, which depicts a young woman standing with her child while two soldiers loom over them from behind - very 'friendly'!
We saw about a hundred Cambodians gathered in the park being led by a rather over weight, breathless Cambodian Man in their daily aerobics class, that is held every morning and evening all over the city!
We glanced over at Wat Phenom and even got out near the palace and looked up at a huge framed picture of the 'cuddly' looking King, surrounded by a black and a white ribbon. As we turned back to our cyclos we caught sight of a couple of Asian Tourists taking pictures of us, thinking we wouldn't notice!
Exhausted from our busy day, we all went out together for dinner and after a quick meal we were all ready for bed ... As we made our way over to the night market for a little bit of shopping!
Unfortunately, the market wasn't up to our usual standards and with a difficult day ahead of us visiting The Killing Fields, we decided it was time to say goodnight.
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