Siem Reap to Phnom Penh

We had an early start to catch the 7.30am bus to Phnom Penh. Full of locals and the odd backpacker, the bus set out across the incredibly flat Cambodian landscape, past an endless sea of rice paddies and stilted houses lining the road, to the tune of Khmer pop music and the honking bus horn every time we passed a scooter. My, there are a lot of scooters on the roads of Cambodia. Just to make the trip a little more eventful, the bus blew a tyre on the outskirts of the city, enabling us to spend an interesting hour on the side of the dusty road, watching the pick-ups and trucks drive by, jam-packed and overloaded with goods and people, interspersed with thousands of scooters carrying anything from one to five people. The daily life of Cambodia was passing us by.

We were late into Phnom Penh as a consequence and, after a quick clean-up, grabbed a tuktuk down to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda to wander through their serene gardens, the golden hues of the various wats, halls and stupas glowing in the late afternoon sun. From here we wandered across to the National Museum to watch the hundreds of bats that call its roof home emerge at dusk. The locals, too, had emerged to take in the cool of the day; kids played soccer in the park and groups of people did fitness dances to music as the sun set in a red haze behind the mysterious phoenix profiles of temple rooves. We wouldn't see a lot of Phnom Penh, but we aren't big city people, and this little taste was enough to ensure that we would leave the next morning with a pleasant memory.