Phnom Penh, Moi, Bee, Bey (1,2,3)

"Have you been to Phnom Penh?"
"Yes"
"How was it?"
"Shit"/"Dirty and disgusting"/"Hated it"/"I got robbed 4 times"...etc etc
"Oh..."

This has been the general gist of conversations we've had with people who have been to Phnom Penh. Combine this with the fact that the L.P warns of bag snatching rip offs and general dodginess in the capital, we were shitting ourselves at the prospect of spending much time there.

After reuniting from our week apart, we stashed our wallets, cameras and anything else of remote value in our hostel room and heading out with minimal cash for dinner, expecting to return battered, bruised and penniless. Luckily, we survived day one without any issues and after seeing the streets full of smiling moto drivers rather than knife-wielding gangs of thieves, we realised that, perhaps we over-reacted a little. Sure, PP can be a pretty dangerous city, but in our experience it actually turned out to be quite fun....so much so we ended up spending a week there all up.

Aside from the lack of visible muggings, the two things that really stood out to us in Phnom Penh were how friendly the people were and the abundance of info available for foreigners (and Cambodians) of the country's recent and difficult history. Admittedly, we weren't very well versed on Cambodia's history (we knew the basics, but nothing in great detail), so places like the S-21 prison (former Khmer Rouge torture prison) and the killing fields proved to be horrific, yet highly informative for us.

S-21 prison was quite confronting

S-21 prison

War remnants aside, Phnom Penh has some interesting markets, a stunning Royal Palace and a few nice Wats all complete with striking orange robed monks (with nicely accessorised orange umbrellas too!)

Striking orange robed monks....shame they didn't have their matching umbrellas

Royal Palace

Eight-legged lunch anyone?

Many would say the riverside in Phnom Penh is the place to be...but after trying at both the river and lakeside, we'd have to disagree. For us, the lakeside was a lot more relaxed and social, but more than anything, it housed #10 Lakeside Guest house/bar. Being the bar flies we are, this became our regular haunt where we would sit, drink, laugh and learn Khmer from the locals (we can mow say: "thank you" , "1, 2, 3, 5" (not 4), our ages, "what's the time", "eat", two different words for sex and "boobs"...all the important stuff.

Believe it or not - this is part of the bar at our guest house

It's fair to say that Phnom Penh exceeded our expectations (not hard, they were very low). We had an awesome time and were sad to leave our new Cambodian friends who made us feel so very welcome in their city...or crime...and dirt....