Phnom Penh
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
19
29
Trip End
Oct 01, 2008
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Monday, September 1, 2008
Phnom Penh is a city of some stark contrasts. There is quite obviously a great deal of dire poverty here which is cast against the amazingly beautiful palaces/wats, monks dressed in orange praying and meditating clouded in incense smoke and very nice restaurants filled with happy european aid workers eating hamburgers and french fries sipping mojitos. There are some really nice open spaces here, for example the park at the independence monument, which at sunset is filled with happy smiling locals flying kites, exercising and socialising. Also an interesting thing (for us anyway) is the all pervasive use of US dollars. It really is the de facto currency of Cambodia, ATMs dispense dollars, many/most prices are quoted in dollars and everywhere you go the exchange rate is $1 = 4,000 riels
KA at the Royal Palace
. The basic rule is that if something is less than a dollar you pay in riel, more pay in dollars, if your change should be $1.50 you get a one dollar bill and 2000 riel. Simple.The spectre of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot also loom large, of course, and are graphically illustrated at Choeung Ek (aka the Killing Fields) and the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide. Tuk tuk drivers, obviously operating in a very competitive market, call out smilingly "You wanna see Killing Fields?" as you leave your hotel (we couldn't really get used to this).
The museum is very stark but very informative and sets out the plight of the victims and the atrocities of the evil regime in a tasteful way but doesn't pull any punches in terms of graphic photos and descriptions. Probably the best way to do it really and understandable given how long it took for the Cambodians to get the rest of the world to believe and take notice of what had been happening in their country.
Choeung Ek is also, as expected, very grim. A tall pagoda forms the central memorial site, it is glass and has inside it the skulls and clothing of some of the victims of the Khmer Rouge's killings that have been excavated from the mass graves. The places where these graves were are also seen in the area characterised by numerous, now mostly grass filled, holes that dot the landscape.
An aside to the trip to Choeung Ek, on a completely different note, relates to our transport there. We had read that the road to the site was not sealed and therefore quite dusty so we wanted to get a car. We had asked around and the going rate for a car was $25 to take us there and back (it's about 14km out of town) but we happened to chance upon an "ordinary" taxi while we were walking down the street and asked the driver how much it was going to be. He looked a little confused as he said "about $20, I think, but we use the meter, meter". We wanted to agree on $20 but he was insistent that we use the meter so we went ahead with that. Once we were underway, we were flicking through a magazine in the back seat of the taxi and the source of confusion became clear. Metered taxis had only been introduced to Phnom Penh the month before! We were in one of 12 metered taxis that exist in the whole country. The journey ended up being $16.
