Melting in Phnom Penh

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Well it doesn't take long to realise that you are no longer at home in the temperate rain forest of Vancouver and have hit the wall of heat that is Phnom Penh. Just getting off the plane and stepping onto the gateway reminds you that you have travelled far, into the sauna that is South East Asia in February. You get used to your clothes stuck to your every curve and the sweat dripping down your back. The city is alive with a cacophony of sounds from the competitive tuk tuk drivers assaulting every tourist with their familiar refrains, to the children selling books who crowd around your table in search of a sale, to the exhaust of the scooters to the workers who break rocks in the blazing sun. The street along the river is alive with movement at any time of the day and it's also tourist land filled with a strip of bars, restaurants, travel agencies and all conveniences necessary for a travelling life. In fact, some of the restaurants are so swish that they would not be out of place in Manhattan, but neither would some of the tourists who totter around on their high heels and their best outfits, looking strangely out of place in this still developing city with its uneven pavement.

Walking anyway is a challenge as the newly wealthy fill the streets with Lexus, Range Rovers who park on the sidewalks and lanes of the road, hogging space competing with scooters, buses, tuk tuks and the occasional bicycle. There is no order to the traffic that comes at you from all directions. The drivers appear to care little for the pedestrians who attempt to cross the street and at any given time traffic will come at you in multiple directions! And just because it says it is a one way street, remain skeptical, it isn't! Keep alert and watch your back!

Your day starts with a huge $3 breakfast with your own personal, freshly baked baguette - a lovely hold over from the French colonial days along with the architecture and grand wide boulevards with their parks and statutues in the middle. You get to watch while life unfolds in the town just outside your comfy seat and finally you realise that you should get moving so you bow to the pressure of the tuk tuk driver to avoid the humidity and sign up to have him take you to the Museum which is a homage to all of the people who were tortured and died in downtown Phnom Pehn at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. It is a sombre place and so overwhelming that at times you feel physically ill, but you press on looking at every photo in an attempt to honour the dead. It is unknown how many people actually perished here, but likely close to 20,000 just at this one facility. It remains a grim reminder of a social experiment gone horribly wrong. All tolled likely close to 1.7 M died in just under 4 years which was about 1/4 of the population of Cambodia at the time so it touched nearly every family here in the country and changed the history of the country forever.

After that heavy start to the day, we relax for a drink with our tuk tuk driver while he tells us about life in the new Cambodia as he is too young to have experienced the Khmer Rouge legacy. He speaks with pride about his new son, only four months old and how he must learn English. It is a good segue to the present and forward looking the city is. It has absolutely reinvented itself as a tourist mecca and is now competing with mighty Bangkok for the tourist crown of South East Asia, something that would have been unthinkable even 5 years ago. However, judging by the busloads of tourists from all countries and walks of life, they are making headway and the gap is closing. With Angkor Wat the most visited tourist attraction in the world right now, Phnom Penh is poised to ride on its coat tails and capitalize on its proximity to the temples!

While markets teem into the streets selling all matter of goods from designer teeshirts and shoes made locally and selling for cheap, cheap to fruits and vegetables and livestock, the other dominating presence in the city is the Royal Palace. It's gilded roof peaks out from above the walled compound and can be seen for miles. Inside the grounds are similar to the palace in Bangkok, but less ornate and understated, but still elegant. The silver pagoda made with 5000 silver tiles, hence the name, makes the floor cool to our touch as we leave our shoes outside in the piles with all of the other tourists that crowd the pagodas. The walls that surround the pagoda are painted with frescos and scenes of traditional life. The vastness is impressive as we walk through the expansive area. With the heat being so oppressive, we take shelter under the trees and also run like kids through the sprinklers meant for the plants! The carefully sculpted shrubs add a delicacy to the buildings which look like art. I am amazed that the building is still standing and was not ramsacked by the Khmer Rouge like so many places.

After seeing the palace and having seen the National Museum earlier, there is only one place to go, the place to see and be seen and the real soul of Phnom Pehn, the boardwalk along the river. While quiet by day, at night it seems like the entire population of the city of 1.5 M turns up to transform this place into a carnival like atmosphere. First come the street vendors, the children dragging their coolers of drinks too heavy to lift, then the older women, some carrying various fruits on their head gracefully while nearby two other enterprising women are doing a brisk business in sweet, salted and spicy mangos. Just on the other side the smell of freshly cooked corn fills the air competing with the sulphur of eggs being boiled. Down near the small pagoda, smokes billows with the pungent aroma of incense as the worshippers carry bouquets of lotus flowers and joss sticks to make offerings while the band beats out traditional music on drums low to the ground.

On the other side, the modern era coexists peacefully with the more traditional as the fast paced music is blasted through a speaker system brought in for the night and where the young cool guys, sparkly baseball caps on sideways, lead a group of devotees through free aerobics every night. There is nothing quite like watching a group of people do aerobics in their flannel pjs and flipflops in the stifling heat! After that there is traditional dancing and then break dancing by 3 young boys while a large crowd looks on. All along the side of the road, cars stop and park and otherwise teenagers on scooters cruise the strip. The people watching is beyond compare as both young and old, locals and tourists mix and relax in this daily ritual as the sun goes down on the city and we say good bye to Phnom Pehn.

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Photos

In front of the Royal Palace
Note which one of these tourists looks newly arrived!