Day 17 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Trip Start
Dec 04, 2007
1
17
33
Trip End
Jan 05, 2008
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Phnom Penh has changed alot since I was last here in 2002.
The airport is now much like any other airport in any modern city and although the roads are still crazy, the quality of the cars has greatly improved. We saw lots of 4WD lexus, Landcruisers and a couple of nice American RUVs.
Our tour guide was nice and took us around the Royal Palace (the King was in residence but we did not see him), the silver pagoda (in the royal palace grounds) and the national museum (by a different but still knowledgable guide)
Eli in the hotel pool
. It is apparent that Cambodia has lots of different Gods - (www.godchecker.com if you're interested) - too many for me to record accurately1We also checked out the Victory Monument and Wat Phnom; where you can purchase small birds and release them from captivity. It's a Buddist practise I think, however recapturing the birds so that the next lot of tourists can then release them may not be what Budda has in mind when he set it up.
Very nice overall and a good afternoon, even if we were escourted around Wat Phnom by our very own member of the Tourist Police.
After getting stalked at Wat Phnom by a few unsavory characters (but no trouble - probably due to the tourist police chap that escourted us) we decided to have dinner in the hotel. Everyone got something they liked but it was a bit on the expensive side (as you would expect at a hotel). Getting an early night tonight for another early flight tomorrow to Siem Reap.
We could have done The Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng genocide museum but thought that this would have been bad for Eli given the sadistic nature of what went on and how emotional it is to see it in person.
