Phnom Penh - Day 2

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Today started out much better than yesterday. Its amazing what a good night sleep will do. I had arranged to meet up with my civicly minded Tuk tuk driver. Mr Vy (pronounced V) agreed to be my driver for the day, which is a whole lot easier than haggling with various tuk tuk drivers all day.

We started our tour at the royal palace. A strange thing about Cambodia is the 2 currencies. Even in this government building the entry fee was in USD. I asked if I could pay in reils which was OK. But they definitly don't trust their own currency. I don't know if it's because reils aren't worth much, or because Pol Pot blew up the central bank and they didn't have a currency for a long time, but US$ are definitly preferred. The royal palace consists of a series of buildings. The king was home today, so his compound was not open to the public. But there are other buildings to see, including the stable for the royal elephants. I've never see a stable for elephants before, I gotta say, it was smaller than expected. Sadly there are no elephants in there either. The king had two white elephants (albinos) and when the Khmer Rougue came through Phnom Penh, they killed them and ate them. I asked my guide why, was that to send a message? Or just because they could? He said yes.

The two main buildings in the palace compound are the coronation temple and the silver pagoda. Both have many gold and silver statues, draped in diamonds. Cambodia was rich in precious metals and stones. Which explains why the French colonised the place. In the silver pagoda there is a statue of the buddha which is made from one emerald rock. Its not a huge statue, maybe just over a foot tall, which is a pretty big rock. I asked how they managed to keep all these precious things from Pol Pots regime. The king buried them. I didn't think to ask which king. Because King Sihounouk abdicated the throne to become a poiltician. He was later exiled and started this little group called the Khmer rougue. But that's a story for another day. While he was in politics his Dad took over the firm, the lines of succession are different here.

From the Royal Palace we went to a silk farm just outside of the city. We had to cross the Mekong and I had a little chuckle as I noticed there was a special lane for tuk tuks. A had a bigger chuckle when we got stuck behind a cyclist on the way over. Apparently they are in the way here as well. Anyhoo, we get across the river and then had to catch a ferry to Silk Island. I think the temperature was 10 degrees cooler out here. Maybe it is the open air or because we were on an island in the middle of a river. But I was sweating my butt off at the palace, while the farm was quite pleasent. I had a young guide Tia, walk me through the place. This is her part time job, she proudly told me she uses the money to pay for school. Well done you Tia. she talked me through the whole process of making Silk. From the little moths with dodgy wings so they can't fly. They do mate for 8 hours though. I was tired just thinking about it. The mating kills the male, the female lives long enough tp lay eggs....and then dies. The humans take over and keep the larvae well feed on a steady diet of mulburry leaves. Then they weave themslelves a silk cocoon and emerge a dodgy winged moth and the process starts al over again. Their entire life cycle is about 40 days, of which they are only moths for 3. We really should just call them caterpillars.

Once the moths are done with their cocoons, the workers boil them and pull away the incredibly fine fibres to make silk. One silk thread is 25 combined fibres. It is very fine work but the ladies go about it with incredible speed and dexterity. And this is women's work, apparently men are not gifted with the patience for it. Once the thread is woven it is then dyed and woven into scarves and skirts. There were three ladies set up and working the looms. Although there were about 20 looms on the premises. Watching them work the looms was amazing. So many thousands of threads and weights and pedals. And they just hammered away at it. It is a knowledge and skill handed down from mother to daughter through the generations. But it is tedious work. It takes two weeks just to weave one scarf. They are beautiful intricate works.

After the silk farm Mr Vy took me to the Golden Temple. Cambodia is predominantly Buddist. The temples here are as beautiful and colourful as anything I have seen in Bhutan, with one slight difference. The big Buddha's in this temple had a halo like circle behind his head, made completely of LED flashing lights. As if the ornate paintings on the walls and the golden statues were not enough. Our gold plated building is not flashy enough....add some lights!

After the temple it was time for some lunch. Mr Vy took me a locals place by the river. It was essentially a garden with about 20 bamboo pergolas and a lot of extension cords. Why the cords? Because as we sat down the waitress brought over a fan about as old as I am and plugged it in. There must have been something wrong with the extension cord because the fan kept stopping. There was a great deal of discussion, plugging in and unplugging, new cords brought out, more discussion and eventually, the fan worked. We had a traditional Khmer lunch of fried chicken and Khmer seasoning (salt, pepper, sugar, lime and chilli) rice and soup. It wasn't much but man it was filling. Or maybe it was the 3 beers. After lunch the rain started. I was quite impressed with our little bamboo pergola with the thatched roof, it kept us bone dry

With the rain looking like it was going to clear, Vy took me to the Monkey temple. On the way there he stopped to buy " something". We then drove to his sad little temple surrounded by a large park. A bunch of kids ran out to great us. I had no idea hat was going on. Vy stepped out of the tuk tuk and started calling into the trees. The something turned out to be dried peas whi h he then took out and started shaking. Like a moth to the flame half a dozen monkeys decended out of the trees to investigate. The rain drives them up into the canopy, but Vy tempted them down. The little guys were very cute but I must admit I felt guilty. This kind of tourism teaches wild animals that humans equal food. eventually when these guys encounter humans who dont have food, they may get upset about it. Or worse, poachers may use the trust built to capture them.

The rains had started again so we jumped back on the Tuk tuk. Then we did a quick trip to the National Museum. It was lovely but by this stage I think I was all touristed out. So I asked Mr Vy to take me back to the hotel where I took a much needed shower.

Tommorrow, the tuff stuff.

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Photos

Royal Palace
Homecoming

Mekong River
You're ferry awaits

Golden Temple
Harry Potter Buddha

Monkey Temple
Mr Vy and the Monkeys

Monkey Temple
We are not ammused