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Published: January 25th 2011
The Royal Palace
Inside, there is a throne room that is still used for coronations. Behind this room, there is one room for the king and one for the queen. They are not allowed to have sex one week prior to the coronation.Traveling in Cambodia definitely takes time... On Sunday night, we caught the night bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. It took them forever to get everyone seated in the bus (half an hour, although everybody had their seat number printed on the thicket), so the doors of the bus were open a long time, therefore the bus was full of mosquitos when we finally left. Phnom Penh is just 300 km from Siem Reap, but the journey takes more than six hours because the buses stop frequently. Some time during the night, Mizzi woke up and saw that there were many bus drivers sitting outside the buses, having something to eat and chatting. This stopover took 45 minutes!
But finally, around seven in the morning, we reached Phnom Penh. We were picked up by a tuk-tuk and had breakfast and a shower at our hostel. Then our tuk-tuk driver took us to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and to the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide. In the Tuol Sleng Museum, prisoners were tortured, and then taken to the Killing fields for their execution during the cruel regime of the Khmer Rouge and their leader Pol Pot from 1975
The Silver Pagoda
It is called Silver Pagoda because there are about 5,000 tiles that cover the floor. However, you can only see a few of them because most of the floor is covered by a carpet. to 1979. We were totally shocked about how incredibly cruel human beings can be and were close to tears when we left the sites.
So in the afternoon, we visited the more pleasant sites: the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. Both are surrounded by a nice park. In the evening, we walked along the banks of the Tonle Sap River and finally had dinner in a restaurant on the fifth floor of a building, from where we had a beautiful view of the promenade along the Tonle Sap River.
Today, we took it slowly. We visited the National Museum, in which there are many exhibition pieces from the pre-Angkorian and Angkorian period. After a stroll through the Central Market, we walked back to the riverside and had lunch there. After lunch, we looked for Wat Ounalom, the headquarters of Cambodian Buddhism. There is a Buddha statue, and in a stupa behind the main building, there is a hair of Buddha himself (at least people believe this). We entered the little temple and were blessed by a man sitting there after making a donation.
We just returned from an evening boat cruise on the rivers Tonle Sap
Choeung Ek Killing Fields
Almost 9,000 people were killed here during the regime of Pol Pot. Their bones are in the stupa you can see on the picture. and Mekong. It was supposed to be a sunset boat cruise, but we did not see the sunset because of a clouded sky. However, it was nice to have the view of the city from the water and to see the other bank of the river Mekong, where there is a floating village.
Tomorrow morning, we will catch a bus to Sihanoukville, a town by the sea.
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Rebi
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YEAH!