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Published: April 4th 2010
Blue Lime hotel
Fabulous pool, hotel in the backgroundOur Hong Kong to Phnom Penh flight was with Dragonair, who we'd never heard of (Melissa had some visions of a rickety old plane), but is actually owned by Cathay Pacific and was just fine. We even got a meal on the 3 hour flight, which can come as a bit of a shock after spending so much time travelling within North America, where you hardly even get a bag of peanuts anymore. After making our way through customs, and paying our $20 Visa fee (Cambodia uses mostly US currency for large items, the local riel for smaller amounts), we grabbed a cab and headed to the hotel. It didn't take long to realize you're in southeast asia. The cab driver spent the first part of the drive trying to figure out whether he could take us to a hotel to get commission. Once I let him know we had a hotel booked and paid for (hadn't actually paid for it, but they usually quit after that), he switched to trying to get us to buy day trips from him.
I had booked a hotel called the Blue Lime, which describes itself as "urban accommodation" in a local neighborhood. The
Riverfront buildings
You can see the french influence in a lot of the architecture biggest complaint people had is the fact that the entrance is down an unmarked alley with no lighting, so it can seem a little dodgy at night. Fortunately on the website the hotel provides directions in Khmer that you can print and give to the driver. The hotel itself only has 14 rooms in a pretty standard looking, but renovated Phnom Penh apartment block. Only a couple years old they redecorated the rooms with all concrete furniture, floors, walls, and it turned out really good. After checking in and getting our first taste of the sweltering heat and humidity, we spent some time at their amazing pool waiting for the Royal Palace to open at 2:30.
From our hotel we were about a 15 minute walk to the Sisowath Quay, which is the riverfront area, and where most of the hotels and restaurants are. One thing I read about Cambodia prior to the trip is that locals rarely walk anywhere, which might explain why you get asked by every tuk tuk and moto driver whether you need a lift when you're walking. In such a poor country and slow time for tourism, there's an obvious abundance of tuk tuk
Royal Palace
Chan Chhaya Pavilion - used as a stage for events, like the 2004 coronation of King Norodom Sihamoni to tourists. Even our hotel, which was not in the main tourist area, had about 3 tuk tuk guys that just waited outside the gate.
We went down to the riverfront area to grab some food, then made our way over to the Royal Palace. Too cheap to pay for the $6 US tour guide, we used the trusty lonely planet for our walking tour of the grounds. You can't visit the entire complex as the current King of Cambodia actually still lives here. Some amazing buildings, statues, and overall very impressive grounds, and many of the buildings are used today for official ceremonies. We spent a couple hours wondering around with all the Japanese tour groups, apparently Cambodia is really hot on the tourist trail for the Japanese as we saw a ton of them over the next week.
Being that Melissa and I are slowly starting to learn to enjoy good food, we actually spent some time researching restaurants for this trip, which is a first for us. We used primarily Tripadvisor for this and started out by going to the #1 rated restaurant in Phnom Penh (1.3 million people) called K'nyay. On the way to
the restaurant we saw a really strange site that we would actually see a couple times more in southeast asia. In a park in the middle of the city we saw probably 500 people separated in groups of about 50 people all doing a big group dance led by instructors. We passed on joining in and continued on. For a $2 tuk tuk ride we got dropped at the entrance to a laneway, another tucked out of the way place.
We shared some sweet chili spring rolls for an appetizer, I had a beer and amok for my main. Amok is basically the national dish of Cambodia, consisting usually of fish (sometimes chicken) covered in their spice paste called Kroeung (curry taste) and coconut milk steamed, served with rice as most of the dishes are. Melissa had a banana curry with rice and a mango and passionfruit smoothie. Being that it was our first night in Cambodia and it was the #1 rated restaurant we didn't mind splurging on the $16 meal.
Feb. 3 - We had arranged with our driver from the day before to pick us up and go to S21 prison, the Killing Fields and the
Russian Market. We agreed on $15, which I think is pretty good for a driver and vehicle for the day.
The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia refers to the communist political party led by Pol Pot, who took control of the country from 1975-1979. The real simplified agenda of the party was to turn the entire country into an agricultural society, meaning they kicked everybody out of the cities to work in the country farming. Anybody they felt that was a threat to the ideology of the party were arrested, detained, tortured and killed in the prisons. This included any intellectuals, anyone who spoke a foreign language, foreigners, and anybody identifiable with any other political affiliation. They were also worried about revenge, so when they identified someone, they would bring in the entire family and murder them. An estimated 1.5 million people (or 1/5 the population of Cambodia) died during the period.
The first place we went to is the security prison number 21, now the Tol Sleng Genocide museum. The prison was originally a high school and converted to an interrogation and prison in 1975. An estimated 17,000 people were put through the prison, either killed on site
S21
The crude cells built in the classrooms or taken out to one of the killing fields. The Vietnamese found the prison when they invaded in 1979, with 14 recently murdered victims still on site. It was turned into a museum almost immediately in 1980. Nothing has really been done to the site since it was turned into a museum other than adding some information boards and photographs of the victims. The Khmer Rouge were somewhat like the Nazis in that they took photos of their victims who went through the camp. Its a very erie feeling to go through a museum like this, but a part of history that shouldn't be forgotten. The museum posts some pictures and biographies of people that were in the Khmer Rouge and what they're doing today. Its a very strange feeling to think that this happened only 30 years ago. Its the main reason why the population of Cambodia is very young as it took quite a few years for normal life to begin again.
From the museum we went to the Choeung Ek killing fields, about 17km outside Phnom Penh, one of many killing fields during the Khmer Rouge reign. The site contains a number of mass graves, and
Choeng Ek
The memorial stupa containing skulls of some of the victims a large stupa containing the skulls of over 5000 victims found at the site. Most of the victims were killed with metal bars, axes, or machetes due to the shortage and cost of bullets. One of the most disturbing images is the sign on a tree describing the location where the guards would smash small children and babies' heads against.
After having such a somber morning we had the driver take us to the Russian market next. Due to the fact that so much clothing is made in Cambodia, you're able to get some really good deals on both brand name and fakes. I picked up a couple $3 t-shirts and an Abercrombie golf shirt for $5. Melissa began her shopping obsession with sundresses, I think we walked out of that market with a couple, about $4 or $5 each. We also got a couple of purses, quite a bit more at 2 for $40. But I feel okay about my negotiations as the guy let me walk away from his shop twice at lower prices. I've learned the only way to know if you're anywhere close to the right price is to walk away. If they let you
go, you're offering too little, but most times before you get too far away from the shop they'll say okay.
After shopping we dropped our bags off at the hotel and walked over to the riverfront for lunch, and then on to the Foreign Correspondents Club for a drink. We hit the pool for a bit in the afternoon and then went to a restaurant called Friends for supper. It's a popular spot both for the quality of food and the fact that the restaurant is a non profit that takes in street kids and trains them to work in the tourist industry. It's a pretty nice thing for us to be able to pick any local restaurant we want and never pay more than about $12 - $15. The only place Cambodia is expensive is if you stay and eat at the bigger chain hotels, but with the pace of foreign investment, it likely won't be long before prices rise.
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