Monsoon like rain and flooded streets and us arriving from Vietnam that’s how I started my journey in Cambodia. I decided to go straight to Sihanoukville with three Slovenian guys. So we hopped on the next bus. The four hours ride turned into an eight hours bus trip, one of them was spent waiting at an intersection just to cross the road (!). At 1 in the morning we checked in at the GBT Guesthouse. It was close to the beach and had really nice rooms set in bungalows. Of course we did head straight to the beach and joined the parties. The next day it was raining almost all-day. However it did not prevent us from going for a swim. Later in the afternoon I visited the Swissgarden Guesthouse to talk to the two exapts, who opened the guesthouse two years ago. Definitely interesting to hear their story and experiences. The day after I headed back to Phnom Phen.
Phnom Phen is a busy city as so many other cities in South-East-Asia. I spent one whole day sightseeing and walking around the streets. I went to see the Palace, some Wats, the S-21, riverbank and the Russian Market. These places are packed with history and unfortunately lots of bad history recently. I decided not to see the Killing Fields, although significant in history, but I have seen many terrible place alike on my trip already. Despite that I have read up on it and got some related information in the S-21 prison. The hostel Golden Boat 2 I stayed at wasn’t very good. My laundry arrived two days late, rooms weren’t cleaned and trips and tours overpriced.
Cambodia differs in many ways from Vietnam. Everything is different bit also has some commonalities. I like the food better here than in Vietnam. The Amoks and LokLaks are great food. The tourist life is more expensive as mostly you pay in dollars. So most of the goods are at least one dollar, whereas in Vietnam one dollar was 20’000 Dong and left plenty of room for haggling. however people in Cambodia live on a smaller daily budget than in Vietnam.
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