Hello!

Travelling through Asia is exciting, because it is adventurous. You just never know what to expect, since things never go as planned. I should actually say things never go as we would plan it, because here in Asia there never is much of a plan. Things just are the way they are, and in case of a situation you just go from there and see what happens next.

So to get from the island Phu Quoc, our final destination in Vietnam, to the mainland and further to Phnom Penh we booked ourselves a trip through a local tour office. We were told that the trip would take about 8 hours. First of all a minivan picked us up from our guesthouse at 7.30 am to bring us to the port so we could catch a ferry to the mainland. Arriving in Ha Tien, a little port town still in Vietnam, we were picked up by another minivan that took us to a local office. At the office we obtained bus tickets for Phnom Penh and we had to fill in some forms for our Cambodian visa. The office took our passports to arrange everything in advance at the border and we were told to come back in 1,5 hours to proceed our journey. We used this time to have some early lunch and take a bit of a walk, since we were going to be sitting in a bus for some hours. Since nothing is ever really on time in Asia it was past 1.30 pm when a minivan picked us up again (instead of 1pm) to go to Cambodia. At the border we got the necessary stamps in our passport as usual. What was unusual is that we had to go through a small ?medical exam? before being allowed into the country. We had to fill in some more paperwork and our temperature was measured to see if we had a fever. After paying the guy a dollar (everything costs obviously something) we were ready to go. The driver seemed in good spirit and wanted to make up for the past time by speeding through the Cambodian villages. We had a good laugh when he stopped at a stand to take some gas (not the usual gas station as we know it), while the motor was still running. Not much later though we stopped again to discover that the guy basically blew up the motor. When he removed his seat to take a look (while we were still sitting inside of course) the van soon was filled with smoke. They had no better idea than getting some water and pouring it over the hot motor?! Anyways it was pretty clear we were not going anywhere anytime soon. After about an hour another van came. There were three tourists inside that were already at the next town (30 min. away) but had to come back for us, they were not too happy about that. Instead of leaving the broken van they decided to tow it, but without any real material to tow it with, so we ?lost? the van about 5 times. After 5 times, the driver of the van that picked us up suddenly realized he did actually have a rope in the back! So after another 1,5 hour we finally reached a small town (20 km further) were we could drop the old van. At that town we were told to get in a car to get to Phnom Penh. Just one little problem, we were six persons that had to go in that direction, with just one car. Imagine 6 tall persons having to fit in one car, with 6 backpacks of min. 15 kg! That does not work! After some discussion we managed to convince them to arrange another car. Then finally with a delay of 3 hours (only) we reached Phnom Penh!!

We actually quite liked the city. There is much to see and it is quite modern in comparison to other big Asian cities. While we were there we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. An old school building that was used as a prison site in times of the Khmer Rouge. Revolutionists were interrogated, tortured, regardless of sex or age, Khmer Rouge soldiers had no mercy. We decided not to visit the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, since we figured the museum enough horror for one day.
The next day we visited the royal palace and its silver pagoda, Wat Phnom (where the legend of this city lies) and Wat Ounalom. Before we knew it our time in the capital city had past and it was time to move on to Siem Reap in order to discover the amazing temples of Angkor. More about that next time!

Ciao!
Charlotte and Franjo