Just Friends Pt1

She’s here! After five weeks of counting down and 36 hours worth of travelling, Stephanie finally arrived in Phnom Penh. For those of you that don’t know Steph very well, she’s afraid of flying, boats, any road vehicle that she’s not in control of, my old scooter, dogs and probably much more which I’m yet to discover. Least to say, SE Asia isn’t the place to avoid them so what better way to start off, than by picking her up on a rented Hello Kitty scooter! It was a pile of shit and I think I only got away with it as she was still smacked off her face on diazepam that the doctor had prescribed for flying. All jokes aside, as there’s far too many when she’s around, it was great to have her little face with me for the coming few weeks.

I had carried out all the planning stage on my own and pre booked all the accommodation, it’s a first for me doing it like that but with only a short trip ahead and Chinese New Year a few days away it was best that way. Our first stop was a beautiful roof top pooled hotel for our stay in the city. From there we would jump on Hello Kitty and explore.

It wasn’t really a mega busy few days, we enjoyed the pool, went to a few markets, ate some Khmer food, watched traditional Khmer dance show at the national museum (don’t bother wasting your money on that one) and visited the morally obligatory Tuolsleng Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek Genocidal Center or as they are commonly known, S21 and The Killing Fields, respectively.

I won’t go in to much detail about those visits, as you can imagine by the names, they’re powerful places for the wrong reasons. Places like this must be visited so we can all bear witness to the torture that humans can inflict on each other, to learn from the horrific past and never let it happen again and ultimately remember those that weren’t and aren’t as fortunate as we are today. Life can be a tyrant, full of hate and oppression but on the other side be full of love and kindness. I believe it’s the latter that we mostly see, it’s not really a bad place to knock about and humans are generally good but people get lost sometimes, it’s places like those museums that should remind us and keep us from straying so far from peace. Lets hope no one has to endure suffering like that ever again.

Phnom Penh