It took me a while to write the blog posts for the Killing Fields and Tuel Sleng, I would do a bit per day as it was heavy going. I wanted to write it up properly or not at all. In between doing this I did some Geocaching, which was just an excuse to go for a ride, and I did some partying and met some nice people as well. 🙂

Thursday 7th February

The first Geocache I went looking for was actually on the same day as I visited the Killing Fields and Tuel Sleng, I actually wanted to finish the day on a lighter note. It was lighter, but not a happy ending as it turns out. Mr Savannah had to do a dash for cash as he did not have enough fuel to go where I wanted, so as we went past the hotel, his missus came out and slipped him some dosh 🙂 . Over here the fuel is quite pricey and they certainly don’t bother to fill the tank, they usually buy a litre here and a litre there from the coke bottle fuel stalls scattered all around the joint. Where I was heading was to find a cache called Monkeys Temple

On the map you can see it is on the island to the east of Phnom Penh city, and is about 9km from my hotel.

The cache is no longer active, probably due to my actions today, so if you click on the above link to find a description, it will ask you to log in to read it. To save you doing that, here is the information for this particular cache.

So we head off through the still crazy traffic and across the river. The road was a bit bumpy and potholed at times, but we soon arrived at the temple.

While Mr Savannah chatted with some locals I headed through the maze of Stupas and tombs in the posh cemetery looking for ground zero. Using the description and the GPS I found the correct location quite easily, but I was slightly dismayed to find the cache was supposed to be inside an actual tomb! But, it was the only one around without a lock on the door(to stop them escaping?) and was wide open, so I assumed it was an empty one. Well, I looked and found nothing, except for the china jar in the top opening, I figured that must be it and was horribly wrong, inside that jar were ash and bones 😦 That was a bad move, I felt horrible for doing that, but really thought the place was clear of anything.

I went back to the TukTuk and checked out a few of the statues around the place trying to cheer myself up.

I was done for the day, it has been a long grim one and now I needed to relax. Once we got back to the hotel, I went looking for a snack shop, but in the end grabbed a local special, a section of sugar cane is passed through a rotating crusher, then folded over and done again, folded onto itself again and again and each time more juice is forced out of the cane stalk. The resulting drink is brilliant, very very refreshing 🙂 In this particular case, the chap has a small engine powered unit, most other ones I have seen are hand cranked. It was a sweet drink, but not overly sweet, a very nice taste, different, but I could get used to it 🙂

It was a bit early for booze, but once I had been to the shops and found my way around a bit, I went back to my room and logged the cache that I had not found. Now, I hate logging DNF’s or Did Not Find, it sort of means you did not try sometimes, but it happens and I have logged a few. In this case, I found the correct location but the cache was missing, some people I had noticed had logged a found, but there was no cache, so how can they, a confusing point. There are other options to log and I could write a cache note, or post a “Needs Maintenance” note or in this case “Needs Archived”. I had now read some of the past logs, quite a few people were repulsed by the fact it was in a tomb, and also, I personally felt because this cache had been muggled in the past, it would happen again and again. I am sure the local kids would check it every so often just in case.(For those that do not know, a muggle is a non cacher, if they see you hiding or finding something, then they may take it away or otherwise destroy it and spoil the fun, so we have to be careful about who is watching.)

This is the log entry I posted and within a day the cache was archived. Considering there were hundreds of likely spots in that Wat area to hide something, why they chose an occupied tomb I have no idea. I mean, I am not religious or anything, but fairs fair, I don’t want to be caught going against a local custom!!!

Well, I only had old log info on my GPS and did not read the current ones. Never mind, I went and did not find..

regards
TS

So, after that little episode it was booze time 🙂 I sat on the 1st floor bar and had beer and food, and had a few more beers as well 🙂

Now the food was an interesting saga, or a loss of communication as it turns out. In my room I had seen a menu, and one of the items was sweet and sour pork ribs, now that sounded cool, so I was going to order that. But, when I was looking through the menu downstairs(which had a picture for every meal), I could not find the item and queried the fact. They brought out a different menu and I found it and ordered it. But, what turned up was a dish of deep fried pork ribs(they had been chopped into small bits with an axe and battered then deep fried) with veggies etc etc. I argued the point, saying that is not what I ordered, long story short, I got in the end exactly what I ordered, a small rack of pork ribs, in a sweet and sour sauce!!!!

Well, that was a mistake, it was tiny, the meat was tough and chewy and hard to get off the bone and had never seen a marinade, but the sauce was nice 🙂 The staff ate the meal I sent back, then the boss dude came over to check if all was OK, I said, yep all fine here, no way was I going to bitch about getting what I asked for 🙂 😆 All in all, not the best meal, but over the next few days I tried other dishes and was very happy overall with the food quality here.

That’s all for today, beer calls. 🙂

Cheers from Phnom Penh
TravellingStrom