juliet

I acquired a BIKE again this afternoon, courtesy of my guesthouse (though I did have to wait 15 min while the nice man took it to the nearest roadside bike/moto fixing place to sort out a puncture). And headed up to the train station, where I was told that there is no longer any service to Battambang. :( This doesn't enormously surprise me, as by all accounts the train's been on its last legs for years (the girl I spoke to in Moscow who'd taken it from said that there were whacking great holes in the floor of the only carriage). I may wander up again on Friday just to confirm, but it looks like the bus for me. Bah!

On the other hand this does simplify one thing: I wasn't planning to visit Angkor Wat (v famous temples), and then I was thinking maybe I would like to after all, and considering ways to manage this. If I'm not getting the train to Battambang, I can get a bus to Siam Reap instead, spend a day looking at temples, and then another bus to the Thai border and on to Bangkok. I'll lose a day in Bangkok, but that's OK.

Currently I am in the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Phnom Penh, which is a splendid building with no windows, big armchairs, wireless (sadly pay-for), GECKOS on the walls[0], and $1 local draft beer during happy hour.

( I visited the genocide museum - text under cut may be distressing )

The more cheerful thing today was a wander round the National Museum, which has assorted art, sculptures, steles etc, in a lovely building, and which although small was lovely.

[0] I love geckos. My Dad spent a couple of years in Singapore in his early twenties, and used to tell us about all the rooms having geckos on the walls and how this was a Good Thing as they ate the biting insects. I found the idea of indoor geckos impossibly exotic, and it's almost symbolic for me of the Far East. I am thus inordinately excited about them. Also don't they stick to the walls with van der Waals force? Which is pretty awesome.