Madness and horror

Trip Start Jun 26, 2008
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Trip End Jun 2009


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Flag of Cambodia  ,
Friday, April 24, 2009

The taxi from the airport, in rush hour, gave us our first true taste of this city. Traffic rules do not apply here and scooters wait until their combined numbers are big enough to force their way across the intersection. Top sights were the man on a moped with an exercise bike strapped to his shoulders and the man on a bicycle pushing a ten-seat dining room table. Our hotel had a good colonial porch on which to escape the madness and wait for Charlotte to arrive from the airport. When she arrived she seemed only mildly scarred by the traffic but fairly shattered so we headed for early dinner at a lovely Khmer restaurant around the corner.

Next day we headed to the Royal palace and Silver pagoda. This was an exercise in skipping from shaded corridor to building as we experienced the beginnings of what shall henceforth be called "CAMBODIAN HOT". Within the temple grounds the local musicians were relieved when we gave up attempting to play the Xylophone that was open for tourists Braving the traffic
Braving the traffic
 . We headed downtown and wandered the underwhelming riverside and beautifully stacked fruit stalls of the market before finding a wonderful noodle restaurant run by a flock of formidable Matriarchs. We escaped the early afternoon heat in the national museum. The building itself is lovely and is full of artifacts from Pre-Ankorian times onwards.

Last tourist stop was the obligatory visit to S-21. This is the school that was turned into a torture camp by the Khmer Rouge. A truly terrifying and harrowing experience that seemed to drain the life and soul out of all of us with each level of the old school showing more and more pictures of people that had been tortured here. On the way out we were about to leave when we realized that we had missed a whole block of the school that was on the far side. We made our way over feeling already saddened and depressed to the atrocities that had happened here. The bottom floor had 11 classrooms turned torture rooms. Each still has a bed in the middle, left as found, with a picture on the wall that show the corpses of 7 men and 4 women that were found dead chained and left.

We left in the rain and felt too harrowed to flag a tuk-tuk so decided to walk back to the hotel to clear our heads. Walking the streets gave us further opportunity to observe the craziness of this city and watch the traffic while passing workshops, small restaurants and engine reconditioning shops.

Phnom pehn is a strange city that has a sense of loss, colonialisation, rejuvenation and a good lively nightlife all juxtapositioned into one heaving mass. So it was a good end to our depressing day that we headed to a bar and then fabulous restaurant to cheered us up.
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