Phnom Penh:

February 19th, 2005 - February 21st, 2005

Greetings from Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh...

There is not too much nice to say about the place. It is quite dirty, not well maintained, and a little scary after dark; although, they are working hard to give it a face lift after its horrible history and there are signs of improvement in some areas. We are here a total of 3 nights and that is plenty...

Basically, Cambodia is a country in transition and many reminders of the horrible atrocities of the Khmer Rouge remain in society today. It is not our favourite spot by far on this trip, but there is so much history here that it has made our visit worth while.

We arrived in Phnom Penh via bus on Saturday afternoon. We were able to take in the National Museum and Royal Palace which are both full of great artifacts housed in beautiful buildings.

The star attraction was a 90kg solid gold Buddha statue in the Silver Pagoda building of the Royal Palace - if that is not enough, the Buddha has a 25-karat diamond placed on its head as decoration...

Having been up at the crack of dawn for almost a week straight and needing to beat the heat, we ventured to a local movie house. For a few dollars each, we got a private room with leather couches and big screen TV while they played a movie of our choice - it was also complete with drinks and snacks as well. We saw Ocean's 12 - pirated copy, of course!

It was dark when the movie ended and having been advised not to walk long distances at night, we opted for a moto-taxi. We each hopped on the back of a motorbike for an exhilarating ride through central Phnom Penh by night. What a rush ripping through the big traffic circles and then down the small alleyways to get back to our guest house!

Sunday morning was another early start. We headed out to the infamous Killing Fields of Choeung Ek - made famous by Pol Pot, the former leader of the Khmer Rouge. There was an astonishing stupa on the site filled with the skulls of many of the victims of Pol Pot's campaign of genocide.

There were also several mass graves in the area, some of which still turn up bones and clothing each year when the rains come causing the ground to become soft and erode. It was an eerie feeling being around such scenes of death and seeing bones and clothing still coming out of the ground.

From there we went to the Toul Sleng Museum which was the former S-21 Prison where Cambodians were held and tortured under the Pol Pot regime waiting to be taken to the Killing Fields to be murdered.

The rooms of the former school turned prison were still in tact. Other rooms had black and white mug shot style photos of the victims that were taken and kept as records prior to them being murdered.

There is more to this city than death and destruction, but sadly, what makes it intriguing is the checkered history. We were able to enjoy a nice meal overlooking the waterfront last evening; an area they are working hard to clean up and promote more tourism.

Today we were able to take it easy. We ventured to the "Russian Market" which houses a lot of knockoff goods... most were not near the quality of Bangkok. But, there were still some good finds including a decent flashlight to replace the one that we broke.

This marks our final day in Cambodia. We are on the 6:30 am bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam tomorrow. We will spend almost a month working our way from the south to the north in Vietnam.

NEXT ENTRY