Neverending Days and Sleepless Nights, Khmer Style

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After a short day in Bangkok, we headed to Phnom Penh for the first leg of our stay in Cambodia. In just two days, we were able to see the main tourist attractions while still getting a good sense for the city's melancholy past. Less than 30 years ago, Phnom Penh was almost completely evacuated by the genocidal Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot. Over one million citizens were murdered, starved or worked to death in the name of Pol Pot's vision of Khmer purity. As a result, Cambodia is one of the lesser developed of the Southeast Asian countries. Poverty is rampant and much of the local economy is dependent on the patronage of tourists.

To a Western traveller, the condition of the city's national museum and Khmer Rouge memorials such as the Cheong Ek Killing Fields and the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum come as a complete shock. There are relatively few signs instructing tourists, pictures and paintings are taped to walls, and humidity and rain ravage many displays. Though Khmer history is interesting and one I'd like to learn more about, the sight seeing in PP seemed unfulfilling. More memorable were our visits to the Russian Market, getting "lawyered" by child hawkers (will try to give a more detailed account sometime!), people watching over Anchor beers, and holding on for dear life as our tuk tuk driver navigated a traffic circle the size of Dupont that was curiously lacking any stop signs or signal lights.

Oh, and the title of this entry begs an explanation. Maybe it's the sun, or the jetlag, but somehow time passes painfully slowly here, with every hour seeming like an eternity. This is especially true at night when, literally, one of us wakes up every hour and asks the other what time it is. Lack of sleep is making us loopy.

Anyway, Heeral met the first Asian cuisine she didn't love. Khmer noodles are tasty enough, but fairly bland. We didn't branch out into the crispy street critters that Cambodians are known to munch on, but we did catch a glimpse of the little rat that scampered across the floor of our hostel room on our last night there. Perfect timing, as we'd had our fill of Phnom Penh and were ready to head to Siem Reap.

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