A little bit of French Riviera in Phnom Penh ....

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  Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Hugh:
We got the bus from Sihanoukville to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. The journey took almost 5 hours (including a 30 minute comfort stop) although it was probably not much more than 60 miles distance! That is mainly due to the fact that almost all vehicles in south-east Asia seem to be completely underpowered/overloaded/over-peopled etc (you should see how much can fit on one little moped!).

On arriving at the bus terminal, we stepped off the bus to be surrounded by tuk-tuk drivers all yelling and shouting "you want tuk-tuk? where you going?" (and shoving it must be said!). By the time we were getting our bags off the bus we had two tuk-tuk drivers fighting over our custom. I tried to play them off against each other, but strangely neither of them tried to under-cut the other.

Phnom Penh riverside, looking towards our hotel

We got to our hotel which is along the riverside area of the city. Our hotel is very nice, we have hot water, air-con, and cable TV (I watched an interesting programme last night on Discovery about how cruise-ships are built). The boulevard along the riverside could almost be in Paris. There are loads and loads of smart corner street cafes. We really like this city!

Today we went to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. This was the prison/torture centre used by the Khmer Rouge to interrogate people (plus their entire families including babies) who had committed "crimes" against the regime. In total more than 17,000 people went through Toul Sleng, most then ended up in the killing fields just outside Phnom Penh. Of the 17,000 less than a dozen survived. It was obviously quite a thought-provoking place to look around, especially seeing the actual cells where people were kept, the rules they had to follow and how they were treated.

Ros:
Well after that cheery morning we went shopping to cheer ourselves up. Which worked a treat on me but drove Hugh further into depression I think ;) We went to the Russian market (which is so-called because lots of Russian tourists used to go there, not because any of the stuff is remotely Russian - it isn't)

Ros at the Garden Centre Cafe, Phnom Penh

. We're getting really good at haggling, getting the prices right down, but Hugh drew the line at curtain fabric unfortunately (I'm still regretting that one). However, I do get the feeling we will now be continuing our travels onwards with one giant backpack each, one rucksack and now an additional bag of bought-goodies. Oops. So, if any of our wonderful, esteemed and lovely friends who will be meeting us at any point before we fly to India feel like bringing an extra suitcase to carry a load back to England, that would be wonderful :) (Failing that, we'll head to a Thai post-office)

After the Russian market we headed for lunch at the Garden Centre Cafe. It is a cafe, in a garden centre cum art gallery with a menu that begins with vegetarian food and adds meat as an afterthought at the end. Did we mention that we're liking this city?!

At this point it would seem a good time to write something about the food that we've been finding along our journey. I know that some people reckoned that we'd be losing weight along the way - doing loads of exercise on very little nutrition. Our guide book (sorry, forgot the inverted commas... our 'guide book') told us that we'd have loads of problems getting vegetarian food in Cambodia. Well, we've been finding it easier than Thailand so far

Toul Sleng Museum 2, Phnom Penh

!

In Thailand the cuisine is very sea-food orientated. They seem to want to stick fish, or fish-related yuk into everything. However Cambodians appear to eat more meat, so we wonder whether that means that they are actually more likely to come across vegetarians (as many 'vegetarians' eat fish or shellfish) than the Thais. Either that or the influence of Vietnamese Buddhists (who I *think* are the other variety of Buddhism that is often vegetarian). I can't imagine it's the French!

So, pretty much every place we've stayed in we've found restaurants with vegetarian sections of the menus, or with veggie things marked. From rice dishes that are fairly Thai-like, to veggie burgers, Khmer curries (that seem to taste a lot like our attempt at Thai curries at home!) to Indian food, we're doing well here! And lunch....well, after a fair few curries, rice-n-vegetable type dishes and noodles-n-vegetables we were kinda craving a bit of home-style normality. So provided by the Garden Centre Cafe we had quiche and salad. Yum :)

Hugh:
After lunch we hailed a tuk-tuk to come back to the hotel

Toul Sleng Museum 3, Phnom Penh

. This was the most scary road journey yet that we've experienced in Asia (apart from the taxi driver on acid when we were in Bangkok 2 years ago). I think it was the tuk-tuk driver's first day on the job. Actually I think it was the first time he'd driven a tuk-tuk, and certainly his first day in the city! I told him the name of where we wanted to go, the street number, and I even showed him on the map. He assured me he knew where it was. We've only been in this city for about a day, but it didn't take long before we realised we were going a very long way round. At one point he had to stop to ask another tuk-tuk driver for directions - the other guy just laughed at him. In the end we had to give him directions. I think it would have been better if I had driven from the start. When we finally got us to our hotel he then asked for extra payment because he had gone the wrong way! We told him where to go... (think he got lost on the way though)

Ros:
Little note on riding in a tuk-tuk in Phnom Penh. Rule of the road in this place is that you drive at a junction, tooting your horn and hope for the best. Somehow we've not seen any accidents. There are no give ways, very few traffic lights and people don't really stick to one side of the road. So, when approaching a junction there are generally motorbikes, bicycles, tuk-tuks, cars, jeeps and maybe the odd hand-pushed card all heading for the junction from different directions all at the same time. 'Beep beep', 'hoooot', 'honk honk' (and, if there's a rag-n-bone cart nearby, something that sounds like a squeaky dog toy). Then somehow, just like that advert on TV, they all miss each other. I reckon fairies help out. I've never had my eyes open long enough to disprove this so it's that or a miracle.

Where we're staying in Phnom Penh
Bright Lotus Guesthouse 1 - Street 178, near the Foreign Correspondents Club and the river. $16 for A/C, hot water, en-suite, cable TV. Free guide to Phnom Penh available at the desk, including a map that is rather helpful for tuk-tuks!

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Toul Sleng Museum, Phnom Penh

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