PHNOM PENH DAY 1
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2008
1
65
319
Trip End
Sep 02, 2009
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Monday, December 1, 2008
We find one of the hotels recommended by the chap last night for $20. The desk man says $45 so we take a look. It does include breakfast and we come down to negotiate. We get it for $35 and he has to include breakfast for this morning. He also will have their tuk-tuk take us back to Okay Guesthouse to get our bags.
The breakfast is a buffet, lots of Cambodian food same as in Vietnam and China, rise, noodles, soup and hot veggies all green in colour. There is also some little sausages, French toast and Cambodian waffles, fruit, omletts or eggs of your choice. They also have a little very old toaster over to make toast in. It was very good.
We are moved in and off to tour the Royal Palace, but it is closed as it is just after 10:30. We meet a tuk-tuk and hire him to take us to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. We knew this would be a very sad place to go to and see. It truly was. There is a presentation about the prison, what happened here, and also the account from a Scandinavian journalist who was invited to the country during the war and his feelings and views on how he was deceived by those in power showing him only what they wanted him to see and make him believe. We paid or respects to those who were killed there and also thought how awful it must have been for some of those ordered to do the killing. You can read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum It is hard to express what we seen and read.
We then caught another tuk-tuk (they are open surreys or carriages pulled by motor cycles) and came back by the Royal Palace for lunch and then walked the grounds. It is so very big and impressive, the gardens and immaculate and well manicured. The buildings are spectacular and the collections inside very impressive, lots of silver and gold ornaments and bowls and buddah's with diamonds. We heard some music and went to watch two young men playing instruments one made of bamboo and one like a little half circle of steel drums joined together. Len got to have a try playing with them. We went through the elephant display, lots of silver elephants from small to very large, about 12 inches high and then there were the same only in gold. A display of seats and umbrellas that would be used when the king road an elephant. We were only in the outer grounds, where the King and Queen reside is gated off.
We then went down the street from our hotel to sit on the corner and watch the life go by. It was happy hour and Len had a .80 cent beer and I tried a gin and tonic. Not too bad, I had another one. We are dinner there and thoroughly enjoyed the evening.
We noticed it is cleaner here, the people look similar to the Vietnamese, speak a softer dialect, not so much horn honking, and more English spoken.
