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Phnom Penh Cam-bodes well
Entry 18 of 22 | show all | print this entry |
So, we have a well deserved lie in, after all of the beardy fun the night before...went to find breakfast as our Guesthouses' was excruitiatingly cher, think 75p for a boiled egg! PAH! well, this city isnt really geared for travellers, no little gigi cafe coffee shops, only the prices are touristy and theyre shootiing themsleves in the foot cos now the locals cant afford anything.
Anyway, Holly is partial to the old supermarket, so we go into 'Lucky Mart' and wander around in the cool...its airconditioned but the meat coolers are even cooler...considering Cambodia is by far the hottest place weve been so far- maybe due to the concrete emitting heat that it has absorbed or something sciency like that? So, supermarkets, theyre rather facinating arent they? they have boxes of raw chicken drumsticks where you and everyone else in the country picks their own....lovely...
We buy fresh fruit and MILK-FRESH MILK-NON UHT-NON SOYA- ACTUAL COW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! me and han drink a carton each and breathe on each other because we are such ladies. We sit on the steps in the supermarket eating this previously described feast, a totally normal activity in England..maybe just in Bris, i dunno, were all rather common, but anyway it facinated everyone to see all of these white gals guzzling milk sat on the steps up to the department store..
We trek in the heat to the Independence Memorial, a big thing in the middle of a roundabout, vair structural and not exceedingly attractive, and slather on suncreama s we walk.. Our plans are merely to visit the royal palace and teh silver pagoda, and take a exceedingly delightful stroll along the outside of the palace on a road shut to cars, making up a song called 'SweatyBack'- you get the general idea, although i will put the lyrics up at some point.... We got stopped by a monk collecting alms for something or other...basically we were taken by the shiney gold card he gave us- we had a chat to him for a bit about Buddhism, and gave him some riels- probably about 5 billion, in return for World Peace and sexy boys..fair deal i think? non?
Entered the royal palace, didnt realise you had to cover legs, guidebook only mentions shoulders-grr rough guide- so we comically pull our shorts down to cover knees, and are let in as our shirts cover our Rude booooi boxer bums....make some muttery comments about wedgees and how stupid it is that 'theoretically' my leopard print, turquoise knickknacks are on show, but that isnt half as indecent as my knees. i quite like my knees. SO the sprinklers are on on the perfect green lawns and i have to restrain my inner child who pleaded to be allowed to run around in them...i have a feeling the decency patrol wouldnt appreciate wet t-shirt competiions either.
The palace itself is actually many different buildings, all equally splendid, the throune hall is pretty darn posh, then we went into the 'outfit' room and found out that they wear a different colour every day- vair jazzy! should introduce that as some kind of national uniform- i Vote fluro yellow on thursdays. Chatted to another monk, who didnt promise World Peace or sexies, but was interested in where we came from, so had a civilised convo with him, and went in search of t'silver pagoda, which we couldnt see...saw another emerald buddha tho.
Went to a cafe (FOUND ONE) and annoying french woman and VB were there....woopdedoo. they pretended they didnt know us untill i waved infuriatingly at them ( a trick i learned from my mother at a young age who used to do it to our baldy neighbours). Ate a pizza that night. it was disappointing, but we didnt feel like paying 'white rates' again.
The following day is our day apart, so after getting breakfast and booking our bus to Siam Reap (for tomo) we duss off on our own- all headed for the genocide museam- S21.
I find a LURRVEly petite cafe, called the Bodhhi Tree which basically is in Ex-Pat central, the bourgoisie area of Phnom Penh (tehre are loadssss of ex pats) but its empty when i go in...whitewashed exteriour wall opens into a courtyard with trees everywhere and little benches and tables. Tehre are appletrees everywhere and bougonvillia and all sorts a nice flaaarss. i write my journal and have luncheon and then head for the Genocide Museam which was in fact a high school. The classrooms were turned into tiny cells, no bigger than an average sized door lain on the floor. the beds and manacles are left for people to see, often with a blown up pixellated photo on the wall of a corpse that was found in the manacles on the bed the day it was taken over. I found it most eerie that they used the climbing ropes from kids 'games/p.e' sessions in the playground, as gallows. The fronts of the open blocks were covered in barbed wire so people couldnt put themselves out of misery. Tehre were photos and photos of everyone who was put there by teh Khymer Rouge, children, adults, pregnant women..some have huge pupils, wide with terror. others are blank and emotionless. some have a glint of defiance, and i feel proud of these people..only 7 people survived S21. the killing fields, not far out of the city are where thousands and thousands of bodies were recovered from mass graves. These people had done nothing wrong.
It was really nice to be there alone. There are 'no talking' signs everywhere but in all honesty people dont need to be reminded. This only happened about 30ish years ago and i think is a sensitive subject still. theres a gallery there about the leaders of teh KhymerRouge, who all deny any knowledge of S21. Whilst we were in Cambodia their trials were going ahead- the problem is most of them have died of old age and the families robbed of members will never achieve a sense that justice has been done.
as i left a man whose face had mostly been burnt off thrust a hat at me, he wanted money. I think in some ways this is taking advantage of the place, of the attrocities, playing on peoples consciences, adn on their sympathies, having just attempted to understand the massacres you are faced with another attrocity. I didnt give him any money. I walked away quickly avoiding teh incessent and relentless 'tuktukcheapcheap'.
That evening we went back to the Boddhi Tree, its Hollys 19th tomorrow and Han and i took her out. The food was fabulous, we ate inside this time, in an old colonial french styled house, that looked like something out of the Habitat Catalogue. Nice! the waiters tried to teach us how to say 'thankyou' in Cambodian (ah-coon) and laughed at our pathetic attempts at 'repeat after me'.
The next day we checked out. Holly received her fabulous gifts, including a bottle of Cambodian Muscle WIne. Its meant to make you strong. its key ingredient is deer antler. TASTEY!!!!
onandon to siam reap.................to be continued...im going bed, g'nightxxxxxxx
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