Phnom Penh

After an almost day-long river and bus journey I arrived in Phnom Penh. It's much hotter here then in Vietnam the last weeks, where the constant rain brought lower temperatures. Phnom Penh itself is rather pleasant, compared to Saigon. It's got some wide, tree-lined avenues and boulevards, the traffic is less intense than in Vietnam in general, and distances within the city are not really long and easily covered by bicycle.
I was and I am surprised by the amount of cars on the streets. There are very few to be seen in Vietnam, the whole world is moving around on small motorcycles. Here in Phnom Penh a car seems to be much more affordable, although the country is - generally speaking - "poorer" than Vietnam. Cambodia and Phnom Penh are full of NGOs and international organisations, though, but this cannot be that important to explain the difference... well, maybe I shouldn't spend that much time on such an issue...

Things to visit in Phnom Penh: the Royal Palace, for example, the Historical Museum, one or the other Wat (Buddhist Monastery). And Tuol Sleng, the former prison and Cambodian pendant to Auschwitz, as one could call it. A brief summary about the history of Tuol Sleng and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge you find at www.tuolsleng.com , together with lots of photos and links...
I didn't go to visit the Killing Fields. They are some 13 kms outside of Phnom Penh, I have read quite enough about the recent history of Cambodia and know what it is all about, and it's simply damned hot...
By the way, the Cambodian government sort of "privatized" the Killing Fields some years ago. It sold the rights to "exploit" (or let's say "administer") the site to a Japanese company, for an amount of money that was never made public...
(Can anyone imagine Dachau or Auschwitz in the hands of a private company? For more information on Cambodia and corruption take a look at www.transparency.org)

I still wait to get my visa for Laos processed.... the border crossing from Cambodia to Laos is the only one where you don't get the visa on arrival. And as I came to Phnom Penh friday afternoon... I said, the city is quite pleasant, but two days are nevertheless enough, now I'm four days here. It's not that I'm bored, but... I stay at a guesthouse with a terrace overlooking lake Boeung Kak. It could be great to just hang around there, reading, doing nothing, enjoying the tranquillity... if there wasn't TV and music, almost always running, at my own guesthouse and the ones next door, at a level that you can't really miss or ignore it. At least in the morning it's quiet. All others are still sleeping and I sit alone on the terrace, sipping my coffee... 6.30, just the perfect time, because one hour later it's already really hot again...