Day 7

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With River and Manish of to work and Tara at school, Shea and I had the day to ourselves. First on the agenda was a visit to the Central Market, a former bus station currently under renovation. We did a little shopping there but it was starting to get hot so we headed off to destination number 2, the National Museum (yes, another museum!). We chanced upon a couple of interesting art galleries nearby and visited them too. Shea shows considerable maturity in her interest in art and has acquired an appreciation for abstracts and was quite taken by paintings of the Bayon face adorned with shades and lipstick! The National Museum is housed in a beautiful red building and cost $3 each to get in. We watched an animation revealing life at Angkor during its heyday which finally answered a question that we had. It showed the houses and dwellings of the common folk around Angkor Wat. All these huge impressive ruins were temples and shrines for worship and ceremony but the people who built them, the people who cut, carved and hauled these huge immensely heavy rocks from who knows where and created these monuments, lived in modest bamboo thatched huts. The more important people lived in wooden houses and no traces of these remain. Interestingly, the animation was created by Monash University, Melbourne, Australia where my sister studied.

It was starting to get really hot (again) and we decided to head home, stopping by the supermarket so I could pick up some groceries. I had planned to cook a meal for River and Manish to show our appreciation for their hospitality. Getting out of the heat into an air conditioned environment was much appreciated too. Alcohol is so cheap here compared to Thailand, I picked up a bottle of Penfolds Chardonnay for less than half what I would usually pay, on the menu was French onion soup, pan fried chicken breasts stuffed with sundried tomato paste served with sautéed leeks in a white wine reduction and for desert, a chocolate fudge tart. The meal went well, made too much as usual and then we retired to our room to pack. We were leaving the next day, the adventure was coming to an end.

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Photos

Phnom Penh
The Central Market

Phnom Penh
Art gallery

Phnom Penh
National Museum