Phnom Penh

We said goodbye to the friendly frog family and our shack this morning as we were picked up for our 'big' bus transfer to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The minibus, as it actually was, headed an hour detour via Kampot to pick up another two tourists and some locals before heading in the right direction. The traffic coming into the city was much worse than we have previously experienced here with truck-loads of lorries being replaced by multiplying motorbikes as we got closer to the centre. We were dropped off somewhere in the middle of the chaos and bartered to get a tuk tuk to our next hotel, this time an actual hotel with hot water and air con again! Once settled, we set out to find some lunch, a surprisingly pricey but filling Vietnamese meal.
In the evening we decided to use some of our birthday money to treat ourselves to a sunset boat trip on the Mekong River. We got picked up from our hotel by a tuk tuk chauffeur and taken to the riverbank to board the cruise boat. There were only around 15 of us onboard a boat made for 160. We set off with our welcome sunset cocktails in hand. It was a beautiful evening, despite being a little too cloudy for the perfect sunset. The boat meandered down the river, past some local fishing villages and back up towards the lit up city. We had a local buffet meal onboard to satisfy are appetite. Once back on land we marched back to our hotel via military patrolled streets (army soldiers lying in temporary hammocks along the roadsides).

(Please note lack of photos of city itself due to constant warnings of petty crimes and therefore we carried very little on us and did not want to get our phones out too much)Read more