Phnom Penh, Cambodia

We arrived in Phnom Penh at about 8pm, were dropped off in the Lakeside district and after being accosted by guesthouse touts and looking at 4 different guesthouses we decided to stay at the Floating Island guesthouse which is a hovel, but the same as the rest of the guesthouses in this area. We tried to find a more expensive room but couldn't! The average seemed to be around $3 a night which is what we paid for very old and basic room with double bed, fan and tiny bathroom. The foam mattress was thin so you could feel the wooden slats underneath and the floorboards were all uneven so I kept stubbing my toes! And the walls were very thin, and the drains in the bathrooms are crap so your bathroom is literally a pool after a shower (which is cold btw) - just trying to paint a pretty picture here! hehe... its similar to a lot of places we've stayed in SE Asia. The staff were really really friendly though!

I think I had enough of roughing it by the time we got to Cambodia so after our failed efforts at finding a nice room in Phnom Penh we didn't settle till we found one in Siem Reap - I'll mention this later.

So we found a room, the first one with aircon actually, we literally dumped our bags and were trying to get the aircon to work when an english guy came out of his room and started saying that his friend is sick and he didn't know what to do. So we went in with the guy who worked at the guesthouse and saw this his friend wasn't in good shape, sweating all over and fading fast - wanting to pass out, couldn't walk at all so Gav and Sangheon (Korean friend) had to carry him out of the guesthouse (which was in an alley etc so a little walk) and into a tuk-tuk and off to the hospital. It was a bit full-on especially after our 12 hour journey! We hadn't eaten since lunch and it was about 9pm so we were shattered.

Our aircon ended up not working, so we switched to a fan room, had a shower and finally could sit out on the lovely terrace overlooking the lake for a quick meal before going to bed.

We wanted to get out of PP and head to Siem Reap as quick as possible so we booked a bus at midday the next day, and arrived in Siem Reap at about 6pm.

I'll also just mention that the Lakeside in Phnom Penh is the backpacker area, and a great place to stay if you want a room that costs under $5US. They are all pretty scummy but there's loads of cheap cafes, bars etc and the drugs are definitely a-plenty! :-S Gav seems to be a magnet for being offered weed - it must be the beard!! Don't worry mum we're not the slightest bit tempted though - no way! We were speaking to some American guys after we carried the british guy to the tuk tuk, and they said that they heard that 7 people have died in the last 10 days or something in Phnom Penh... :-( very sad... sampling the beers of each region is more than enough for us hehe..

There are pretty cute bars lining the lakeside, some playing music and have pool tables etc so it's a pretty sociable place to be as well. Mana you probably did well not to stay in this area I think! There seems to be only one nice guesthouse in the whole area - Simon's place, which seems to be always fully booked.