Entering Country 4/30 – Cambodia

I had heard that crossing the boarder at a land crossing can always be a bit of an experience as corruption is everywhere. There are often random added fees and extra procedures that end up costing you much more than the standard visa fee.

We had to pay $1 for an exit stamp from Laos and then at one window, a guy asked me for my immunization record to get a health slip. I had the immunization record, but I didn’t have a visa form so he made me pay an extra $1. I went inside and the visa forms were just laying on the table and availible just to take, so I am still confused why I had to pay an extra $1, but whatever. The visa fee was $35 and it was smooth sailing from there.

The bus ride was uneventful other than a broken air conditioner within the last 2 hours of the journey.

I had not booked a hostel yet and there were a few people on the bus I had met that had the same idea for the next day, so I just went to the same hostel they went to. It was really nice with a beauty lounge area and a pool. Phnom Penh is just another Asian city and I wasn’t that excited about it, although it is the center of the genocides of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970’s and I was very interested to learn more about this troubled portion of Cambodia’s past. The hostel ran a bus trip to the killing fields and s21 museum for a decent price and so myself and a girl from our bus decided to just do that. It was $7 for the bus and then $8 for the museum and $6 for the killing fields.

I went for a run to the river in the morning and saw some of the city. I saw the royal palace and the market and also enjoyed the waterfront trail. Post run, I went for a dip in the pool, showered then got ready for the tour.

Our first stop was the s21 museum which was an old high school the Khmer Rouge had converted into a prison camp after they marched into the city in April of 1975. There is a lot of history in how the Khmer rouge gained power and eventually took control of the country but basically in 1975 they marched into Phnom Penh and took control of the city. 3 days later, they started telling people they had to leave the city. The Leader of the Khmer Rouge was tying to create a perfect society and had several ideas on how to do this. Rice production became very important and education was abandoned.

They believed that people should not live together in big cities but spread out across the countryside. Shortly after starting to evacuate the city, s21 was established and people started getting arrested and sent there. They were tortured and forced to provide confessions to crimes they had not committed. Once a signed confession was in hand the prisoners were transported 5km outside the city to one of the killing fields were they were executed and thrown into a mass grave.

The s21 museum shared stories from survivors and attempted to provide visitors with an idea of what it was like to be there. Wikipedia has a good overview of the Khmer Rouge genocides and invite you to have a read so that you get proper information instead of my botched description.

After returning from the tour, I skipped out on my own and headed to the three beer places in town. Hops brewery and beer garden was a pretty big, pretty expat/western place that had a big beer garden, pool tables and a small brewing system. They concentrated mostly on german style beers and western food. I had a snack of some french fries and a flight of all of their offerings.

The beers were pretty standard and weren’t really anything special, but were for sure better than the crappy mainstream lagers available elsewhere. Once I was done my flight and my fries, I headed to the next stop which was just down the street. This one was called Botanico which is the beer garden of the Cerevisa Craft Brewhouse brewery. I got a flight of three beers, a pale ale, IPA and a smoked beer.

Third stop on my brewery crawl was the Himawari craft brewery, which is located in a fancy hotel on the beach. They had 4 offerings and I tried all 4. Similar to most of the craft beer I have been drinking, better than the shitty lagers, but not up to California standards I am used to. It’s fun to explore all the same.

After returning from my brewery crawl, I met up with some people from the hostel and we headed to the night market to get some food. I tried a few different things then noticed there were a bunch of eggs hanging out. I asked what they were and to my surprise it was the elusive embryo egg I had been searching for since Saigon. I ordered one and it essentially tasted like an egg although that’s what people had said. Looked really strange though.

In the morning I went for a run then headed to the bus station for a noon bus to Kampot which would be my next stop on my Cambodian journey.