101 Challenges:

Location: Phnom Penh - Cambodia

The bus trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh was 3 hours longer than stated - again. It was hot, sweaty, uncomfortable and all-round crap. But here we are in the land of Cambodia and after three nights in the capital of Phnom Penh we leave very reluctantly. We can’t quite put our finger on what we love about this city. It's dusty, busy, smoggy, very hot, and unbelievably humid. Yet despite all this, it has a very calming effect on you.

We had been staying at the Number 9 Sister Guesthouse on the lake. The guesthouse is perfect for the long-term backpacker or poor travellers. The rooms are very simple and basic which means they're cheap. $5 per night we were paying for our own double rooms - bargain at double the price, and the staff are brilliant.

One word of warning though; there's a guy called Rain working there and although very welcoming, funny and friendly, he sharked his way to three bottles of beer out of us over the pool table within minutes of us arriving. Don’t play him if you ever visit, he’s too good.

Another word of warning is this; The rooms at this, otherwise amazing place to stay, get hot. Very hot. Very, very, very hot. We both woke up on numerous occassions with our bags (not rucksacks but it rhymes) stuck unnaturally to random parts of our bodies. The sweat pours off you and with no AC (air conditioning for the stupid) and only a tiny ill-functioning fan, you can not fail to wet the bed - not with pee, but with body water.

The lake in which this soothing, slightly shanty looking guesthouse (from certain angles) perched on is simply enchanting. It is covered in giant leaves and even some lilies. Around the rest of the lakes outer perimetre lies a few more shanty and not-so shanty guesthouses and hostels. The sad thing is, everything gets dumped in this lake, its more toxic than Britney Spears's Toxic song but it's heavenly;

On the beautiful poisonous green lake there's a few ickle sized kids who arrive in the latter part of the afternoon/early evening offering to take you out on the lake on little boats for the sunset. We didn’t want to be seen as supporting child labour but they were so wise and funny that we couldn’t resist joining them. The fact that we managed to haggle them down to $1 per boat also helped us throw our morals into the lake with all the rubbish the rest of Phnom Penh does. So, we sat on the lake and watched the sun go down very peacefully before becoming hyper again and having a boat race back to the guesthouse. Hell yeah! We made those tiny little people work hard for their money. We loved it - we think they did too. They even took Frank for a ride.

We were so, so, so happy to finally be in Cambodia. There are few better feelings in this life than having the pleasure of leaving Vietnam. Don't get us wrong, it's an amazingly beautiful country, but as stated in "Off The Rails In Phnom Penh" - "Vietnam's incredible. From the instant you get off the aeroplane until the moment you leave, every single person tries to steal, extort, seduce, or lie their way into your pocket".

Frank says he'll be joining us in a few days - he too hates Vietnam. He sent us a brutally honest picture via text message with the following words, "Lads, extrememely dissapointed. Had to lower my standards. Not happy. Not happy at all!

Simply, we just got sick and tired of constantly being ripped off, over charged, conned, stolen from, and lied to. All the aforementioned seems to happen more so and more blatantly in tourist hot spots, but even up in Dalat, 1475 metres above sea level, in the mountains, we were still subjected to chancers galore. So, here we are, about 500 metres from the Cambodia/Vietnam border, ecstatic to be in a happier place - even the security man here was happy to see us;

When in Cambodia, like Vietnam, there's a wheen of things you have to do and visit - some will be a pleasant experience, some won't be. In Phnom Penh you have the tragic S21 Prison and Killing Fields. Both of these places are very significant in the Genocide that went on here in the 70’s.

Hiring a moped each, we headed out onto the mad, mad roads of the capital. This place is crazy with traffic and they really don’t seem to have many green cross code rules other than stopping at traffic lights and not killing yourself or someone else. Suprisingly though, the road system here works. In no time at all, we were zipping along in the hectic and random traffic.

We love driving motorbikes (said in that Welsh birds accent from Big Brother a few years back - Helen?) in any Asian city but Phnom Penh is different from all the rest so far. You have to adopt a do-or-die mentality and show ascertiveness but not aggression. Weaving in and out of moving and stationary traffic, squeezing your way to the front of the traffic lights queue and then ars*ng the hell out of the clutch and accelerator to leave everyone behind is amazing and gives a great buzz.

Lee's been here before and so, with a believable degree of certainty, he tells Lindsay to follow him and that we'll be at the Killing Fields within 20-or-so-minutes. After travelling about 24km's in the completely wrong direction Lee finally admits to being lost.

We then asked approximately 17.3 people for directions but nobody could understand us (probably because we're Scottish) but eventually, we were redirected onto the correct road which would lead us directy, in a straight line, no more than 14km's away to our desired destination.

Onto that road we drove and drove, and drove and drove, until we realised that we'd probably driven about 28km's (not joking). We even had to refill the gas in the bikes.

You see, throughout this drive, Lee was continuosly shouting words like "oh yeah, I recognise this bit" and "nearly there, that building's familiar". Obviously, mind focused on his mouth, he failed to see a bloody massive sign for the Killing Fields. Maybe he got confused as the sign actually said "Genocide Centre" which to everyone but him is the same, same, but different.

So, we drove past this and missed the turn off by 14km and about 20 minutes. On realising his stupidity we stopped for Lindsay to try and get lunch in a small rural community. The first "restaurant" (glorified tin hut) would not sell him food (we still don’t know why - probably because we're Scottish). However, a second "restaurant" (another glorified tin hut) would only serve him soup. There was no option for any other selection of choice. Lindsay resigned himself to eating only the liquid part of the “Cow Soup” he blindly and un-educatedly ordered;.

There were parts of cow in this bowl that we've never, ever seen. Not in any of the numerous cow biology books we read and certainly not on the cow channel on cable (it's educational - not porn!). It was quite simply disgusting. Big fatty things looking up at him, small fluffy things that looked like hairy mushrooms but had lungs on them and everything else that would make you puke instantly was expected to go onto the spoon, into Lindsay's mouth, down his throut and lie in his belly. No thanks luv, I'm stuffed.

After "lunch" we arrived at the Killing Fields. As soon as you enter, you're "greeted" by a huge towering monument to those who were murdered and/or buried there. This isn't an engraved stone or plaque, it's a tower of human skulls that had been excavated from the very ground that we were walking on.

We walked around this haunting and very sad and somber place trying to comprehend, understand, put reason to, and appreciate the horrors that went on here. You can't do it. There are signs scattered around the area explaining what went on and where "192 bodies uncovered here with no heads" and "450 bodies buried here" etc, there are bones stacked against tree's, there are mass graves everywhere (some excavated, others left alone) but, what hit us, hard, was that there were pieces of fabric from peoples cothing, poking through the path we were waling on. We were walking on graves, on top of the dead. It was a horrible feeling and one we didn't want to continue with so, we paid our respects and left. You can't help but feel sorry for the people of Cambodia.

The following day we visited the S21 Prison which is now a museum and formerly to both the previous, it was a high school. When the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh during the coup they turned the high school into a prison, where they interrogated, tortured and eventually killed thousands of, let's face it, innocent people, before taking their bodies for burial in what was to be known as the Killing Fields.

Inside this former prison you are confronted by the small (some blood stained) cells, torture implements, pictures of tortured (and now dead) prisoners, and head shots of thousands of rounded up prisoners who had done nothing wrong other than be intelligent, wear glasses, question the coup or Khmer Rouge or simply because they didn’t look right to one of the Khmer Rouge's army. It is horrific.

You see, what we found disturbing here (Lindsay more so than Lee) is that, at the Killing Fields you have skulls and bones. We're all made up of skulls and bones and so there's no individuality to them (Lindsay's seen a lot of dead people back home - through work). Don't get us wrong, when you see thousands of skulls pilled up on top of each other, it has a fecking horrible impact on you. But, at the S21 Prison, you're confronted by thousands upon thousands upon thousands of photographs of the people who were unrightly detained, tortured, and murdered. You're looking at ghosts. You're seeing into their eyes. You're seeing pure and horrendous fear. It almost knocks you out.

There's a very fitting saying which has been etched onto one of the walls at the prison "When This Was A School Nobody Died. When This Was A Prison Nobody Learned".

Despite the above, we really enjoyed (not the word we want to use but you know what we mean) having the opportunity to visit these places. They both sadden you like God knows what but you learn something from them, something about yourself, and the world - it's too easy to turn a blind eye to someone else's suffering. If you have the opportunity to see these places, afterwords, whenever you come in contact with the Cambodian people, you feel warmth towards them - funnily and strangely, they recipricate it back.

Back at the guesthouse the backpackers and staff chill out and converse about travel and everybody’s love for Cambodia. We never ventured far from the porch overlooking the lake at night but then again we didn’t have the need or want to. On the one occassion we did we entered a poker tournament (they're everywhere in these here parts). Not suprisingly, Lindsay lost almost immediately and so declared to all that he was off to the casino where he would win back his money. Lee was out shortly after and decided to join his bro.

On entering Lee was bewildered at the computerized sysyems, even the cards were computerized. Lindsay, for once, could not be heard and so it took Lee a minute or two to reach him. Once spotted, so too was his roullette compterized panel diplaying his bets. It was like star-trek in there.

He had every number covered with chips - gleefully screaming like a dog on helium "I can't lose!" but sweating like hell to the contrary. When asked what he had won so far, he sadly admitted that he had in fact lost $100 (£50) in the 28 minute gap from the poker game. Lee began to play too, but (much to his younger brothers embarrassment) only played tiny girly bets - 20 Cents here, 20 Cents there. A man is only truly made when he bets $20 per spin on every number possible.

Remarkbaly though, during Lee's taunting of his addict of a brothers gambling skills, Lindsay's lucky number 17 came in (he had more chips on this number than the rest of them) which meant that he had won a lot and now only at a loss of $20. We quickly left with Lindsay claiming some sort of victory over the casino and headed back to the safety of the lake.