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Published: April 13th 2014
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Our Malaysia airlines flight to KL was successful in that we did not disappear. We then flew to Phnom Penh to start our journey through SE Asia arriving on 1/04/14.
The weather was a bit of a shock - everyday is approximately 35-40C and about 90% humidity. We have been told that as this is the month prior to the rainy season it is the hottest. And although there seems to be plenty of tourists around we're told that this is far less than the peak season of the last few months.
Our first impressions of Cambodia and Phnom Penh are that the people within the tourist industry are more in-your-face than Nepalese people but very quick to smile and laugh. As with most places in the world (Australia included), taxi drivers (Tuk tuks in the Cambodian case) are the most wily operators but it is pretty easy to come to an agreed price prior to travelling around town. We managed to find a reasonably priced fan room near the river front (Mekong) and I was very excited about getting a face fool of Khmer food and some cheap beers. We went for an evening walk and it was
fantastic to see people walking, eating, socialising and dancing (like in China) in the local parks and boulevards. Thanks to the French occupation the city is easily navigable with wide, numbered streets lined with trees. French colonialism is evident everywhere with food vendors selling cheap baguette sandwiches along most streets (although these are prepared with Khmer fillings).
I visited SE Asia in Jan 2007 and I have also noticed the major developments that have come to Phnom Penh like high-rise apartment blocks. The backpacker district that I stayed in previously was overlooking a nice lake which has since been completely back-filled for further development (we're told they pumped sand directly from the river into the lake and let the water swamp the surrounding neighborhoods - communities near the lake were bulldozed with a days notice). I'm looking forward to seeing the other changes throughout this region but I'm sure not all of the changes have helped many of the local communities. Tourist money has spurred many of the developments too and I hope that some of the money is getting to the locals...
On a side note, the local beer here at a cheap venue is around 50c for a glass or $2 for a jug. During the day here I tend to sweat so much that I look like a human frog and cold beer is one of the best ways to quickly cool down. There, I've justified it.
We spent our first day wandering around Phnom Penh and visiting the National Museum and Royal Palace. It was a tiring day as we were acclimatising to the heat and humidity (we still are actually!) and thought that walking would be nice. The museum houses many old sculptures from the Angkorian civilisation period (approx. 11th century - Angkor was a huge civilastion that built the world's largest religious structure near Siem Reap called Angkor Wat) and gives a background to the ancient history of the whole region and who was a war with who. Obviously, these civilisations have developed into the different nations and cultures of SE Asia, each with their own distinct languages, customs and traditions. The Royal Palace (or Silver Pagoda) is a large complex of many buildings and stupas dedicated to Buddhism (different to the Tibetan Buddhism of Nepal) and is where the King lived as he was considered 'godly.' Although a tourist attraction, many locals still visit to pray at the different pagodas (temples).
After settling in for the night exhausted, we spent our second day seeing the tourist sights further afield. Given their very recent history of wars and genocide these sights are typically sobering and depressing places. Under Pol Pot's direction (leader of the Khmer Rouge), almost 3 million Cambodians were killed (apparently more than Stalin and Hitler combined - approximately 1/3 of the population) and this was in less than 4 years. Prior to this the Americans bombed large areas of Cambodia and Laos trying to obliterate the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. The Vietnamese only liberated Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge in 1978 and many of the people involved in the atrocities were never sentenced and are probably still alive today. There are also many survivors alive. This recent history is evident everywhere and underpins the national psyche. We learned about this history during our day tour when we visited the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng prison (S-21 museum). Experiencing these places is devastating and utterly depressing. We didn't take any photos and describing them wouldn't do it any justice but if you are interested there is a movie called the Killing Fields which is apparently pretty good.
That evening we caught up with some expats that we managed to get to know through friends of friends. We enjoyed some beers and Cambodian BBQ (so great and cheap) and talked about living and working in Phnom Penh. I even found a bar that showed the rugby, WIN! We have found that this would definitely be a place that Meg and I could happily live and work and we've been looking for different opportunities. We ended up in a bar called Zeppelin and listened to old metal before crashing for the night. We would be traveling to a small provincial town called Battambang the following morning...
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