Phnom Penh: Sufferance and Beauty

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Our arrival in Phnom Penh was already, uhmm, how should I put it, pretty amazing. As soon as we got out of the bus, about 20 people started pulling us, screaming to us, putting flyers in our face, just doing everything, EVERYTHING to get us to the guesthouse they wanted us to go. AHHH!! We even had difficulties to reach our backpacks. Ow my god, this was a very prmosing start. We could barely discuss what we wanted to do, cause we couldn't hear each other in all the chaos. Eventually we decided to go and check out rooms in a hostel we knew from the Lonely Planet, fortunately it was okay so we could stay there.

So.. What about Phnom Penh itself? It's definitely not the nicest of the cities we've visited, but we've seen some good things for sure. The National Museum, with a lot of Cambodian art, was really good. It's also nice when you notice you start to be able to link things, like, ow look, that used to be part of the temple we saw at Angkor Wat, or, hey, this statue must represent the one mythical figure they told about before.. The Royal Palace was pretty amazing too. One big park with lots and lots of buildings, incredible. There might be a lot of poverty among the ' normal' people, but the palace doesn't show any sign of a lack of money whatsoever. Guess the differences between poor and rich are pretty big here.

Just like Siem Reap there are many beggars, especially around the areas where a lot of tourists come. What makes it even more confronting than in Siem Reap is that many beggars are disfigured, because of landmines probably. You do get used to such things a bit, but only a bit.

This morning we visited the Genocide Museum. Very impressive.. The museum is a former high school that was used as a prison in which they killed and tortured people during the civil war. It's pretty much still in the same state as it used to be, plus a lot of paintings, pictures and more such things. It's so amazing to see a picture of how a guy was found dead, after a lot of torturing, while standing in the same room and looking at the same bed. We've also seen a movie about that war and all its terrors, in which some survivors or relatives of people who got killed talked. It's so incredible, 25% of the population died in that war! What's also weird to notice that now, after the war, people don't believe so much in ' bad guys and good guys' . Not that many people got punished after the war, some Cambodians believe way too little, and for instance in the movie a guy who used to be a security officer in the prison and a former prisoner were talking cordially. It's like everybody prefers just to forget and move on..

Emma went to the killing fields afterwards, the area where they used to bring the prisoners to kill them and where also a lot of people are buried in mass graves. I decided not to go, cause it somehow didn't feel right to me. You have to imagine, the Cambodian government (which is one of the most corrupt ones on the world, incredible, as if this country hasn't suffered enough yet) sold the killing fields for probably quite an amount of money to some Japanese company, that aims to make profits out of this ' attraction' . How awful, that a country just sells the bodies of many of his former inhabitants and such an important memorial in their history, only to make money..

Okay, another positive note on Phnom Penh: (sorry, I have to bring up the f-word again) the food is amazing! The Cambodian kitchen might not be so well known, it's really good. Eg our first night we ate at some authentic Cambodian restaurant, and had a great meal.. I even finished my entire (complimentary) desert: bananas in some coconut sauce. me enjoying bananas, that must be something great 😉. And this afternoon we had the greatest lunch ever: I had a (whole wheat!) sandwich with grilled aubergine, goat cheese, and some kind of mango chutney dressing. I mean, this would already have been a great treat back home, imagine in Asia, where good sandwiches are very rare. Sorry to bore you with my food stories, hihi, but a) I also wanted to share some more positive experiences here in Cambodia b) I'm just still very thrilled about it, haha, you guys know me, I know to appreciate some good culinary experiences 😉..

Tomorrow we have another half of a day in Phnom Phen before we leave. We're planning to rent bikes and have a look at several markets here, they're supposed to be great. And depending on the time that's left we might also get a massage, mmmhhh.. Then, end of the afternoon we'll fly to Kuala Lumpur, from where I'll probably bother you again with a looot of new stories 😉!

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