We hopped on a bus up to the capital city. We were expecting
madness with transport but were pleasantly surprised that it was fairly easy,
although our bus had a few mechanical issues which delayed us slightly. That
said we had a wee bit of madness finding a hostel as our tuk tuk driver, who
had confidently said ‘yes yes yes’ had no idea where the one we wanted was and
when we did get there it was full. But we eventually arrived at ‘OK’ guest
house, which was a bit soulless but it had a room and served food. Having
realized that time was against us we set ourselves a busy plan for the next day
to cram as many sights in as possible. Unfortunately the alarm failed us and we
woke later than planned. That said we managed to squeeze in a fair bit anyway.
PP has many scars from the Khmer
Rouge regime, one of the most significant being S21. This was originally built
and used as a school for children although during the height of the Khmer Rouge
reign it was converted into a prison where horrendous torture and daily
execution took place. They believe aaround 17,000 people were imprisoned here
between 1975 to 1979. It was a reminder that not so long ago life in Cambodia was
very different.
It’s a feeling difficult to
explain looking at a photo of a victim taken in the very room you are stood in,
but safe to say not a feeling we would wish to experience again. Many of the
people in the prison we’re executed at the nearby killing fields but we both
felt so saddened by the prison that we decided to investigate other parts of
Cambodian history and head to the National Museum which housed statues and
carvings, many thousands of years old taken from the kingdom of Angkor.
After all this history it was time
for a good glass of wine. This is not often available in South
East Asia and it was a real treat to find a small wine bar selling
drinkable wine by the glass. This set us up nicely to attempt to watch the sun
go down over the river from one of the bars located on the top floor of a hotel.
An attempt that failed as the highly recommended bar was jammed full of
tourists, extremely expensive and we left before the sun did its business.
The food in PP was great and in
the evening we treated ourselves to one of the Lonely Planet ‘highly
recommended’. The restaurant was a project set up to try and give orphaned
children skills to help them get employed within the restaurant trade. We
decided this was the place to try some real local specialties. The food looked
amazingly well prepared although we weren’t too sure what had arrived or how it
was meant to be eaten. After a bit of pondering we finally gave in and asked
the waiters who had a good laugh at us.
Knowing that we would be
revisiting pp again we decided we would shoot off to Battanbang the next day.
