Cambodia

Here we are already seven days in Cambodia. The beginning was a bit quick and before we realised it we had crossed half the country (stopping shortly in Kratie to see the sweetest and very rare sweet-water Irrawaddie dolphins) and there we were in Phnom Pen. Its a very lively and very pretty city with a long promenade along the Tonle Sap river, beautiful French colonial buildings (again) and really cool bars and restaurants. The international community has been very present in Cambodia since the beginning of the 90s, with very dubious results but contributing if not for much else at least to a rather exciting scene and a vibrant night life. Its very telling though, as all the foreigners are gathered in the bars and restaurants and the Cambodians are gathered on the other side of the street, as a dinner here would cost about a monthly salary for most of them.
We had a great evening with Heike starting off with some Spanish tapas and rounding off with some drinks at the FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) watching from the roof terrace the world go by below us. We got some VIP treatment from Keith (you are great!), a former colleague of Peter who was out of town but was very kind to send us his driver who took us for two days around the major sights in the city: the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, the National Museum, a beautiful building with a lovely garden and full of Khmer statues, Wat Phnom, the hill which was established by the old lady Pen, hence the name of the city, after she found four statues of Buddha floating in the Mekong... and sadly the Toul Sleng prison, where in the period 1975-1979 thousands of peoples were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge. Everyone who was perceived to slightly disagree with the regime and its leader Pol Pot or was just in the way of transforming the Cambodia into an agrarian society, was kept, tortured and later killed.
Sadly the whole country bears the scars of this and the consequent civil war and one just keeps thinking: Oh this place would have been so nice...

Khmer New Year 14,15,16 April (actually Buddhist New Year celebrated in the whole SEA) was starting to kick in, although we did not get as much water splashed on us as we expected, so we moved out of town towards the seaside Sianhouk Ville to cool down a bit. The beaches around here are a distant reminder of Thailand but they gave us a very colourful and lively insight into the way Khmers relax and enjoy themselves.