Cambodia on a Dime

Phnom Penh: My Favourite City in SE ASia

I'd heard great things about Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, and wanted badly to make a stop here in the former capital of the Khmer Empire, and the "Pearl" of French Indochina. It didn't take much convincing to get Darren to agree, after he'd heard a few good things himself. It's a fantastic city, dirty as any in the region, but full of so many charming people, wide boulevards, sprawling public spaces, with beautiful temples and monuments throughout. It didn't take long for me to decide that this city was an easy favourite, taking over Kuala Lumpur's place as the paramount capital in the region.

One of the most singularly interesting aspects of Phnom Penh, is the ubiquitous dedication to helping the disabled and those who cannot fend for themselves. There is no social network that looks after them, but rather an ever growing number of NGO restaurants and businesses that donate their profits to one cause or the other. Street kids roam around with books to be sold on the cheap, hoping to earn money to feed, clothe, and house themselves. I gave with few exceptions here, buying a book from a street kid, sharing my lunch of Amok chicken and rice with a small, dirty street child and his even smaller and dirtier little brother, and handed out the equivalent of dimes to several others who asked and appeared to need a little. How they make it in Cambodia on a dime, or a collection of them, is a lesson I never hope I have to learn.

I'm not all mother Theresa though; the giving was spurred on by an event that happened while I was in Hue. I was a bit pissed that everyone hassles you for everything, and everyone and their dog whether they need it or not has their hand out to see if the foreigner will hand over some of their money. So in a callused moment I ignored what seemed in retrospect to be a desperate plea from a retarded fellow. I felt ashamed, and made a joke about it, which although funny, was just a mask for that shame. It strikes at and old scar at the core of my ever-bleeding heart, knowing that if I give to everyone in need I will be in need, and the complexities of whether giving makes

Killing Fields
8,000 similarly abused skulls are housed here. Some 12,000 are missing. Authorities presume they're still buried here awaiting further excavations.

things better or worse. Sometimes bad things come from those who mean well. All the same, his face is etched indelibly in my mind, and I dreamed for the next two nights of the scene, making amends in an ethereal realm for a moment that time swept away from me in the physical one. We all have moments that change us, for a moment or for a lifetime. This, I know is one of them.

Phnom Pehn is full of history, the most prominent are the Killing Fields on the outskirts of the city, and the genocide museum. It's astounding to me that such a compassionate and warm people could have such brutality and darkness in so recent a past. Perhaps their disposition is the result of such events. It is a must see in the city, the Asian equivalent of Auschwitz, though on a much smaller scale.

One thing we found that we have to be wary of is that when you stay at a hostel, they each have a resident driver who will do his best not to let you find your way to your own tuk tuk. They charge more than double the going rate and over less services than if you spend two minutes haggling with your own. Cambodia's not remarkably cheap, but still a good deal.

After a long day in the heat of the day Darren and I finally zonked out in our room, which by morning had cooled to 32 degrees. We headed out to the bus station via shuttle bus and boarded the bus. The driver looked at the tickets and told us, wrong bus. So we scrambled to get our luggage and get on the right bus. So we piled on, and the bus left, stopping a block away for gas. I popped over the seat and asked the girl ahead of us where she was from, and we chatted for a couple of minutes before asking what we were going to do in some god-forsaken place. When we told her weren't going there, but Siem Reip, she said: This bus isn't going there, it's going to Battambang. You're on the wrong bus.

Shit. Merde. Scheisse. We were on the right bus the first time after all. The company realizing their mistake rallied a couple of moto drivers and we raced through the city, weaving through traffic as though we were extras in a James Bond film, to catch the bus. After about ten minutes they realized the futility of their effort and drove us back to change our tickets. I haggled "with confidence," as my friend Patrick would say, for a refund of at least some of our money or their gaff. After 10 minutes of intense negotiations in both French and English, we got nothing but two hours fifteen to go update our blogs and emails. On the plus side we had a very exciting, free tour of a part of the city we might not have seen, at speeds mostly unheard of in the cities of the lower Mekong.

Fortunately, by time we'd gotten on the correct bus, we found out that we weren't the only bus-losers. One couple had left their passports at their hotel and had to get off the bus some 30 minutes northwest of Phnom Penh, and flag down one going into town to collect them. Another German fellow was late and missed his bus 6 hours earlier. So we didn't feel so bad. In the land of the bus-losers, the one's who are put on the wrong

Ruins at Ta Prom
They've sure let this place go. See kids, this is why you have to clean your room, otherwise your house falls in and your civilization collapses.

one by mistake are king. We stopped part way to Siem Reip, and I filled up on an "interesting" snack consisting of a tarantula and several roasted cockroaches. Mmmmm Mmmmm. Good eats. Actually, the tarantula just tasted like soy, but I wouldn't eat the cockroaches again unless I was starving in a malaria infested jungle trying to hide from genocidal maniacs.

Siem Reip and the Angkor Plains:

Angkor is a truly amazing place. Known most famously for Angkor Wat, the plains around Siem Reip are littered with ruins, well and litter. Darren and I went for Indian food in Phnom Penh and I broke my milk fast for some excellent chai. The Indian fellow said he got the milk imported. He said he'd never use Cambodian milk. When I asked why, he said with a thick Bombay accent: "Are you kidding? Have you seen what they eat?" I hadn't, but Darren was almost entirely certain he'd seen them eating garbage the day before. We noticed afterwards in Seim Reip that the areas where several cows stood we conspicuously clear of garbage. Coincidence? Further investigation is required.

The temples were really stunning, and it's clear why this is a wonder of the world. The shocking thing for me was that they live up to all the hype that's heaped upon them before you get to them. The first day Darren and I went out to the major sites. Angkors Wat and Thom, Preah Khan, and Ta Prohm (of Tomb Raider fame). It was great, and at 40 degrees, it was also very hot, so we packed it in earlier than expected. We had put in 9 hours of temple watching though, so we didn't feel too badly. Our driver was a bit of a money grubber, for whatever reasons, so we decided not to go with him on the second day (he was a crazy mo-fo behind the wheel though, which made for some awesome sidewalk passes).

We were lucky enough to contact San Kim, a tuk tuk driver recommended by Claire Hall on this site. He was awesome and very fair with prices on the second day of our touring. We went and saw a bunch of the little sites around the Angkor Plain. Frankly, while the big ones are stunning, I really enjoyed the smaller ones. Ta Keo, was amazingly fun (and scary) to climb. Banteay Kdei was small, but stunning in the early morning, and Ta Som, had a big beefy tree growing out of it's east gate that was unparalleled by To Prohm. There were a few others that were very impressive as well. I wouldn't miss them owing to their unique, and mostly tourist-free, atmosphere (if for no other reason). Aparently there's also achance that a hot English bird might show up too. Darren suggested that I employ hawker tactics to score a date:

Hello miss. Where you from? England. Capital - London, Population - 70 million, Money - Pounds or quid. You have dinner with me? No? Maybe later. If you have dinner you have dinner with me? We have dinner when you come back. Yes? Yes?

Sure it might have got me punched, but it would have been funny. In the afternoon we went to an orphanage to visit, but they had gone to Phnom Penh for new years. It's sad that we missed them, but great that they're going to see families in the capital.

That night we went to a restaurant called the Red Piano, an upmarket place, where Angelina Jolie had apparently frequented, introducing a drink called the Tomb Raider - Cointreau, Tonic, and lime. Tres good, N'est Pas? It seemed fitting since we had slept in the same room as Angelina at our hostel in Phnom Penh. So we felt a certain attachment to here despite the fact that I'm definitely in the Jennifer Aniston camp.

On the way to the Cambodia-Thailand border, we paid for a car to take us. The road is spectacular not for its quality - it only actually has about 2 kms of actual asphalt - but for the enormity of its potholes and the frequency with which they occur. Here are a few simple tips for driving this road:

[List]

If you have 4 dozen dead chickens, just put them on a rack and strap them to the back of your bike

Don't be shy about honking for thefollowing reasons: You're in my way, get off the road before I run you over, please don't sideswipe me, this is a blind corner, i'm bored.

The ability of your car to run over things determines your order in the righ-of-way cue

A dukes of Hazard voice-over would be quite appropriate

DO

Banteay Srei
The highly tauted Bantey Serei was nice, but not worth the extra fee to get out there in my humble opinion.

NOT under any circumstances drink a carbonated beverage prior to undertaking this journey...you might explode.

Best Impression
Darren trying to do his best impression of a statue in order to make the VERY persistent sales girls leave. Just play dead...they'll eventually get bored and leave you alone.

Look Mom, I'm a Lion
Grrrrrr.

A Little Touch of Buddhism
Here at our short afternoon peak at Angkor Wat.

Mr. Roboto
You have no idea how long I pretended to take a picture after I'd already snapped it. That joke just doesn't get old.

A Little Touch of Buddhism
With Pringles taking both the best name and best slogan, Jacker tried to compete with them in the North American market. Their unfortunate attempt to beat Pringles at their own game with a similar slo... [more]

Tarantula Good
Here I am with my first mouthful of tarantula, still undecided. In fairness, I did have a poisonous spider in my mouth.

Sunrise at Sra Srang
The monument is completely unremarkable, but the sunrise is nothing to scoff at.

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1 Comment - Add Public Comment or Send Private Message

April 30th 2008 - Sophat:

Just as a point of clarification, Phnom Penh is the former "Pearl" of French Indochina, but it is Angkor that was the capital of the Khmer Empire.

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