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Published: February 17th 2010
This morning, after breakfast, we walked to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda complex which is pretty much just around the corner from our accommodation. Although the roofs and ornate gilding are described as being classic Khmer, the buildings bear a striking resemblance to the Royal Palace in Bangkok. As it is still the official residence of King Sihamoni, much of the compound is out-of-bounds to tourists. Even so there is plenty to see by the time you explore the palace and the pagoda and the grounds and courtyards that are accessible to visitors.
From the Royal Palace we walked around the corner to the National Museum of Cambodia. The building that houses the museum was built in 1917-20, but to a traditional design so it looks much older. It has a very pleasing symmetry about it with four pavilions built around a very picturesque and restful garden. The museum houses the world’s finest collection of Khmer sculpture that includes pre-Angkorian sculpture that dates back as far as the 4th century!!!
At these tourist attractions there are tuk tuk and cyclo drivers touting for business, men selling maps and guide books, children/teenagers and women selling water and beggars all trying
to extract $$ from us. The teenage boys are the most persistent. They have a routine for trying to engage in you in conversation so that it makes it that much harder to ignore/reject their efforts. They seem to be pretty adept at picking that we are Australian. They start by asking ‘Where are you from - Australia?’ Once you admit to this they regale you with ‘Gidday mate, how’re you goin’? Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi. A Dingo took my baby’!! They are pretty good mimics too and deliver this with a convincing Aussie accent! We don’t know if they understand any of it or if it is just something they have learnt by rote to ‘appeal’ to the tourists. They probably have their set routine wherever you are from??!
After the museum we headed back to the Pavilion Hotel to cool down with a dip in the pool. We spent an hour or so swimming and then lunching in the courtyard before engaging a tuk tuk driver to take us out of town to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. We both felt that this was something that we had to do as a mark of
respect to the Cambodian people. We didn’t think that it would be right to visit their country without acknowledging this part of their history. It is certainly a very sombre experience. It is difficult to imagine the scale of the atrocities that were committed against the Khmer people during the three years, eight months and 20 days that the Khmer Rouge was in power.
From Choeung Ek our driver took us back into the city to the Tuol Sleng Museum. In 1975 Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot’s security forces and turned into a prison, known as Security Prison 21 (S-21), which became the largest centre of detention and torture in the country. S-21 is now a museum that houses a disturbing display of photographs of the victims of the Khmer Rouge. Not only did these barbarians systematically eliminate anyone and everyone who they feared may question their doctrine, they kept detailed records of their activities.
We walked past a tour group where we overheard a member of the group say to the guide ‘If your country is trying to forget that this happened how does your country feel about you guiding tourists
through this site and telling them all about it?’ We didn’t hear the guide’s answer, but I would have thought that it is obvious that the existence of these memorials (Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng) does not demonstrate a country that is trying to forget what happened. Nearly every Cambodian lost family and/or friends between 1975 and 1978 - how can they forget? It is not a period of their history that they celebrate, but they certainly acknowledge it and continue to remember and commemorate those who were lost.
Feeling rather emotionally drained, we were driven back to the hotel. Our driver, Webol (?) badgered us into having him come back in the morning to take us to the Russian Market. I think we were feeling a bit too shell-shocked to argue?! Anyway, he had done a pretty good job taking us out to Choeung Ek and back without an accident despite several near misses!! We were run off the road by a police/military vehicle coming back into town in a big hurry and had several near misses where motorbikes almost ran into us. Webol managed to avoid all of these hazards and delivered us ‘home’ still intact!!
For
dinner tonight we ventured down to the river to a restaurant recommended by Kerry - The Bopha Phnom Penh - Restaurant and Titanic Lounge. It was a bit more upmarket than where we have eaten the last two nights. A riverside address anywhere in the world seems to command a premium. Actually the meal was still very reasonably priced and very nice - even if the waiting staff were a bit run off their feet with a tour group that was in!!
The food may have been reasonably priced, but the tuk tuk driver who took us there was a bit of a bandit. He charged us US$5.00 for a trip just a few hundred yards longer than a trip we took last night for US$3.00. He wanted us to commit to returning to the hotel with him, but we told him we didn’t know how long we would be and we couldn’t give him a time to meet us for the return journey. Despite this, when we came out of the restaurant the bandit was there waiting for us and we felt obliged to make the return journey with him. We told him absolutely categorically (we hope?) that
we have already made plans for tomorrow and we do not need his services again!!
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kath
non-member comment
hols
hi, sounds great. We leave Sat lunchtime. Have a wonderful time. See you soon. Kath