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As we come in to the city we come acoss loads of shanty like homes all beside new build appartments. We find out that we missed some riots by a couple of weeks!! Pitty, I'll just have to wait for marching season in Belfast next year. The Cambodian government is at its old tricks again. Just like the Kmer Rouge they are kicking people out to help with "the beautification" of Phnom Penh!! Time is short now so we get to a new place see what we can before we get stuck for a week getting wrecked....It sems you can do what you want here, except cross the road.... We're joined by an English Guy - Michael - who's beeen in Thailand doing some Muay Thai boxing, fair play to him I wouldn't have the balls!!

The Wild West of the South East

Gareth Penpraze
2007-04-20 22:51:33

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As we come in to the city we come acoss loads of shanty like homes all beside new build appartments. We find out that we missed some riots by a couple of weeks!! Pitty, I'll just have to wait for marching season in Belfast next year. The Cambodian government is at its old tricks again. Just like the Kmer Rouge they are kicking people out to help with "the beautification" of Phnom Penh!! Time is short now so we get to a new place see what we can before we get stuck for a week getting wrecked....It sems you can do what you want here, except cross the road.... We're joined by an English Guy - Michael - who's beeen in Thailand doing some Muay Thai boxing, fair play to him I wouldn't have the balls!!

We're told to go to the lakeside cos its not actually Cambodia, its a whole different world never mind country. Find a pokey guest house near the lake cheap enough. So we explore around all the time being offered weed and a woman. Its getting a bit of a chore to say no most of the time now but you can still have a laugh with the pushers. We come across the Lazy Fish guest house - definitely stay there if anyone goes - its the best place to watch the sun go down and guzzle down a few beers. We have to come back through Phonm Penh to go to Vietnam so we reckon this is the place to go. Some American dude - Mike - has been there for almost eternity and is the biggest 60's throw back we've met yet... He decides to take a boat trip on the lake, beer in one hand and ciggy in the other, with to kids no older than 10 but has to do the paddling himself, cos they tripled the price by the time they were 10 metres off the platform!!

Next day we do a tour of the sights and start off for breakfast with a clip on a Colt 45 (couldn't hit the target with the shakey hands) followed by a good helping of an AK47..The sniper in me comes straight back as I blast my target away only missing with one shot!! There was a menu of guns, grenades, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and even a tank!! It was $1500, a little over my daily budget!! We move on to the Killing Fields and its pretty horrific. Theres a builing about 100 feet high with shelves the whole way up full of skulls from people who suffered from the Kmer Rouge. We see Chris and Kate again (ones we met in Northern Laos) before walking round the fields. Theres something like 85 mass graves uncovered with explainations of what was found there - like bodies with no heads. The only thing I can compare this to is Auschwitz. Next we go to S-21 musuem - a detention centre where Kmers were taken to be interrogated before being shipped off to the Killing Fields. I don't walk round the whole musuem cos its hard to stomach... The rest of the day is spent going round the Russian Market where you can get anything you want for very little, the grand palace (spectacular buildings but can't be bothered by now - all templed out). Again that night we end up back at the Lazy Fish and gat an early one cos we're off to the beach tomorrow - finally - to the seaside town of Sihanoukville!

Gareth Penpraze
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/ASBO-Holidays/