15th – 18th October 2011
Arriving in Phnom Penh late in the evening we entrusted our stay to one of the tuk-tuk drivers salivating around the bus when we got off. He took us to a good place, no bugs or damp and with clean sheets and we negotiated the room charge down a little because we were staying for more than a night.
It was fairly late so we wandered round looking for some food, an enormous spit roast beckoned but the price repelled so we hunkered down on child sized stools at a child sized table and had some beef noodles.
The following day we didn’t do much in the morning, venturing out in the afternoon for a little tour around the city. We visited the central market, which was fairly unimpressive inside and after that the highest point of the city.
A whopping 28 metre high mound with a temple on top. There was a tuk-tuk full of orange robed monks organizing themselves for a visit to the top, they were easily the highlight of the day. We continued to follow the walking tour as suggested by LP, it was so low on sights that the mightily boring train station was included as a stop on the circuit. I didn’t even bother thinking about a photo let alone take one.
Next up was a side track to the non-existent lake near the station, instead we found a billboard with development plans for the now dry area. Moving swiftly on we headed towards the Tonle Sap, a river flowing through the city. It was lovely, we reached it early evening just as families and groups of friends were meeting up to take an evening stroll along the river banks.
The boulevard was wide and at one point it included a jungle gym and exercise bikes for adults. People lined the wall containing the water and sat and watched clumps of water hyacinth drift past, cyclo drivers sat and waited for a fare, small children lugged baskets of books around and Djalma bought a bright orange snake as a pre dinner snack.
We sat and watched the sunset light the sky enjoying a beer or two in one of the bars lining the waterfront.
The next day we were up bright and early, walking across town to find a place to rent bicycles and then making our way through the traffic to the Vietnamese Embassy to apply for our visas. The application process was sorted in less than an hour and we headed towards Choeung Ek, or more popularly known as the killing fields.
The road was so dusty. So Dusty. The whole way there. Horrid. I also managed to leave my sunglasses at the hotel that morning so my, by now, rather sensitive eyes were exposed to the strong Cambodian sun and all the dust that the million and one lorries kicked up as they passed by. We stopped after an hour and cooled off with sugar cane juice and a fresh coconut while we sat and talked to a guy who was getting customers for a bank in the city. Reassured that we had only a couple more kilometers to go we got back on our bikes and arrived within minutes.
Choeung Ek is an old Chinese burial site which was used by the Khmer Rouge to execute prisoners of the regime. It’s awful bloody history is belied by the serene, peacefulness of the site. On arrival we washed off the dust and were given an audio guide. We proceeded round the small plot of land listening to tales of what happened here around 30 years ago.
Lots of what was detailed in the guide was not actually there, all of the buildings had been destroyed leaving only mass graves and sugar palm trees behind. A memorial temple was built after and houses a large selection of clothes, bones and skulls, the latter grouped by ethnicity, age and gender. We left feeling rather depressed.
Cycling back along the same dusty road we decided against Quad biking, it sounded far t tame and something easily doable on a bicycle for a fraction of the cost. We arrived back at our hotel and while I worked on the computer Djalma got his fill of TV.
The next day promptly after breakfast my tummy started playing up, so I went back to the hotel while Djalma got in a cyclo and was pedaled to the Vietnamese Embassy to collect our visas. In the afternoon, after a fat noodle lunch we walked to the Palace and the Silver Pagoda.
The sky was a brilliant blue and the sun was hot, perfect weathers for taking pictures and sweating profusely, I did both.
The current king still resides in the palace so lots of the grounds were off limits, there were several temples we could visit but not much in them, they were much prettier on the outside and a throne room set in manicured grounds.
Continuing through we came to a huge paved garden area filled with pots of different plants, in the middle was the Silver Pagoda, so named because of the silver tiles used to cover the floor. When you enter the pagoda it’s possible to see some of the tiles but most of them are under a protective rug, clinking metallic as you walk over them. It wasn’t as impressive as it sounds, the tiles are thin, although they weight 1kg each and they look a lot like stainless steel. We wandered round the gardens taking photos and poking our noses into other temples before heading out to enjoy the sunset from the river.
The next day I was up early and did some yoga, we left our hotel and got a tuk-tuk to the train station where we arrived 40 minutes early for our bus, we sat and ate Khmer sandwiches made with freshest baguettes we’d tasted in a very long time. A very hot four hour bus ride later we arrived in Kampot, home of the MOST EXCEPTIONAL BLACK PEPPER. We wandered through the heat of the afternoon sun coming to our hotel for the next couple of nights; Blissful. An apt name.
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