Cambodia Survival

After a calm down week in Vietnam I took a bus to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia to meet my buddy Nick.

The bus ride was pretty uncomfortable, with the common commercial stops at overpriced restaurants for breaks where you get charged for using the toilet and so I really started missing my motorbike. The weather was bad as usual in the last weeks but I didn’t care too much because I was excited to travel with my mate again. 

My first steps in the capital city of Cambodia were on wet ground and without any orientation. Nick told me that he would pick me up at the bus stop, but they are never on time. So after wandering around in the heavy rain to search a place with Wi-Fi, I finally found an internet coffee place. As we both didn’t have a Cambodian cellphone number, the internet was the only way to contact each other. I found out that he waited at the bus stop for about an hour and just returned to the hotel because he thought the bus didn’t stop there.

So address given I tried to get a Tuk Tuk, which was my next adventure, because the ones who knew the address did not want to drive me there, and the other ones just guessed where it could be... After one hour, I finally managed to find our hotel and went for a hot shower and got some rest.

The next days we tried to explore the city nightlife, which was not easy because the only places the tuk tuk drivers took us were bars with hookers, restaurants with hookers or clubs with hookers and ladyboys. Even if we told them we didn’t want to go to a place like this, it always turned out to be one of these places as soon as we arrived there. 

But during the daytime we did some trips, once to the shooting range where I fired an AK 47, a Pump gun and a big machine gun and also to the war museum where I learned a lot about the bloody regime of the Red Khmer. After this we paid our respects to the dead at the famous killing fields - which is a huge mass grave a bit out of town. 


On another day we visited the animal rescue center / zoo, which was very nice because we had behind the scene access to the tiger house and to see the leopards. And in the end we even could feed an elephant and walk around with him in the park. Just an amazing day.

One thing which you recognize immediately after you arrive in Cambodia is the huge amount of fancy big cars and the lack of motorbikes. Laos and Vietnam are full of bikes but in Cambodia you only saw a few of them. We found out that the reason for this difference is that motorbikes are much more expensive than a small car, even old bikes.  And fancy cars are nearly without any taxes, so cheaper than anywhere else in the world.  

In Vietnam on the other side the taxes for a car are 300%. For me that’s ridiculous, especially when you know how many people die every year in Vietnam in motorbike accidents.

Our last night in Phnom Penh was the best, but also scary at the end. I did some research to find some normal night clubs so we would for once not end up in a place full of prostitutes. We drove there and had an amazing night in the first club with no other foreigners than us dancing there. 

After that we walked to another spot, which turned out to be the place where rich people make party and again no foreigners there. The time there was even better, but we thought maybe we will find another good spot. When we left, some Cambodians asked us if we wanted to join them to go to another place.

We took a ride in their expensive pick-up truck - of course on the back - and had a good time with our new friends. The new place was nice and one of the Cambodians offered us a drink. I drank mine very fast and I immediately felt something was wrong... I went to the bathroom and felt losing the control over my body... There was something in our drinks! I managed to get Nick and get out of the place as fast as possible. Which was easier said than done, because seriously I barely could walk straight.

We arrived about an hour later safe at our hotel after the tuk tuk driver made a round across the city because he didn’t know our address. Crazy night!

Our next stop was Sihanouk Ville. The place with the (supposedly) nicest beaches in Cambodia. Actually the beaches were not too nice and it was raining all the time. On the main beach, were we stayed at first, everything was so overpriced and touristy so we decided to go to another beach one day later. We had a nice five minutes in the sun on the beach before it started raining... but I still took a swim in the warm ocean :)

After four days we left with the plan of a jungle trekking on our own a little north next to a huge lake. Do fishing, building shelters, making fires, just like Bear Grylls. On the way there it started raining so heavily and so we decided to skip our outdoor plans. 

We ended up in some random small town, which we both dont know the name of. We stayed there three days, drove with a bamboo train and visited a crocodile farm.

The next destination was Siam Reap, the place where  the famous Angkor Wat temple is located. This is actually pretty much everything to find there, only these amazing temples and a lot of child prostitutes. Which is a big matter - I again have to mention the bad things I experience as well. 

Most people don’t know it but in Siam Reap, the biggest destination for people who want to have sex with a child (0 - 18 old) was still running openly 3-4 years ago. 

A whole street which was selling children for sex and this all under military and police protection because of the corruption. Because of international pressure the places on this street are now closed down and the government freed a couple hundred kids. 
Unfortunately it`s no secret that these places are still around, just hidden now.

So my mission to inform the world is done for now. Back to the good things: 

We had an amazing bicycle trip to the temples around Angkor Wat, the temples are impressive and beautiful! 

The best place for me was the most destroyed one, where they shot one of the tomb raider movies. 

At the end of the bicycle trip we took a bath in the water ring around Angkor Wat and we saw some monkeys coming up to us. We watched them for a while but when we walked back to our bikes I saw that one monkey sat on my backpack and I tried to scare him away... 

That wasn't a good idea. He got angry and ran after me and so did about eight of his monkey-friends... As cute as they look, they have huge teeth and I didn't want to get bitten. 

It must have been funny to watch monkeys chasing after me in my flip-flops, because all of my buddies were just laughing their asses off instead of helping me  -.-

Yeah that was Cambodia and I am in Bangkok now 

I will update you as soon as I have good stories for you. Stay tuned!

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