Cambodia- August 2007

We traveled to Phnom Penh 11-13 August 2007. We live in Chiang Mai, Thailand and we’re basing our traveling on the availability of cheap tickets these days and Bangkok Airways had a sale. In order to get most places from Chiang Mai we have to connect through Bangkok. We took Air Asia to Bangkok the night before and spent the night at a hotel which wasn’t bad. Air Asia is one of the many low cost airlines in Thailand and it is a situation where you definitely get what you pay for. The water costs money, the flights run late and the airplanes seem to be hand-me-downs from one of the low cost Chinese airlines. But they’re cheap, safe and convenient. After a very short night at the hotel in Bangkok, we boarded Bangkok Airways. Bangkok Airways calls itself a “boutique” airline and it was much nicer. The food is descent and free. The airplanes are all painted with unique, if slightly silly images. The flight even ran on time!

We arrived in Phnom Penh before 9am and caught motorbike taxis to the guesthouse. We stayed at the Boddhi Tree del Gusto off Street 113 near the Tuol Sleng Museum. There are three Boddhi trees in town and ours was the one further from the genocide museum. They all have great food and lovely rooms. We splurged on the aircon double bed with a private bath. At some point after I turned 30, I stopped dealing with the shared bath and hot rooms. Once we settled in, we were faced with the fact that we hadn’t really had the time to research where we were going and what we were going to see. We had in our possession a print out from Travelfish, the Cambodia section we’d chopped out of a Let's Go Southeast Asia 2003 and a copy of the free Khmer Architectural walking tour. Since many things in the city close for lunch, we decided to plan to go to Independence Monument followed by Monument Books then see some of the architectural walking tour. We knew we had to see S-21/Tuol Sleng on Saturday since they were closed on Sunday so we figured we would head there in the afternoon. Sunday we planned to go to the Central Market, followed by brunch, finish the architectural tour and then do a bit of shopping. And this is what we did.

Monument Books had fantastic tea, good coffee and wonderful baked goods. Since we’ve spent the last year and a half in Thailand, we tend to seek out non-Asian goodies on our travels. The book prices were ok but the place had a great sale book section. I grew up walking cities all over the US and my husband’s an architect --- so the architectural walking tour was perfect for us. I had a great pair of Chacos, a Nikon SLR (I refuse to go digital), a good tour guide and an umbrella. I think this tour was my favorite part of the city. It wasn’t just the buildings we saw but also the detours we took. Phnom Penh is very chaotic and where ever I walked I was heckled by cries of “Taxi Miss?!?!” but the city was fascinating. We took a taxi to Tuol Sleng and prepared to be depressed. The country is too poor to really develop this museum but walking from room to room in this high school that was converted into hell was very powerful. The photos of the people who lost their lives here were the most arresting part. There were so many children! Men, women and children stared back at you from these photos with fear, defiance, anger, hopelessness and most of all pain. It’s too much really to put into words so I won’t try.

We had dinner that night down on Sisowath Quay at a place called Frizz which was decent. We had Cambodia curry which was good but not remarkably different from something I might have ordered in Thailand. We followed this with martinis at Metro and some ice cream. We had heard that Phnom Penh can be a bit dodgy after dark so we took a taxi back to the guesthouse.

We awoke pretty early and walked a long way up to the Central Market. It was an interesting market but I’m not used to aggressive markets anymore. I felt like I was back in Turkey with all the heckling. We headed over for a fantastic brunch back at Metro and spent a lot more money than we planned. It wasn’t that expensive; no more than breakfast at a diner back in NYC. But we’re used to $2 lunches and $5 dinners. We picked back up on the tour and saw so much of the city our feet were beginning to ache. We stopped by a few shops. We climbed the stairs to Madam Penh’s hill. Tried to get into the Royal Palace (but it was too crowded) and ended up visiting two Wats (Buddhist Temples) instead. Both were very interesting. Wat Botomvatey was the first and Wat Prayuvong was the second. Wat’s in Thailand are always open, clean and free of people except for monks or nuns. Both Wats we saw in Cambodia had people camping out under every eave. Laundry was draped between monuments to the dead. In addition, the Wat seemed shuttered and locked. But we met a very nice monk who showed us some of the murals and we discussed differences in how the Buddha is depicted in various countries.

We finished our day with a shower and dinner at the guesthouse. The Boddhi del Gusto has a very nice balcony upstairs where we could sit and listen to the sounds of the city over a glass of wine and very nice cheese. The next day we returned home though Bangkok. It’s nice to return to something so familiar. I have to suggest avoiding the Black Canyon Coffee in Suvarnabhumi Airport.The food was mediocre and a roach tried to hitch a ride with us in my backpack. We thought we were rid of him until we popped upstairs to the Sky Lounge for dessert and he came crawling out when I was looking for my book.

It was a great trip. I'll post my favorite photo once my film is processed. Next post I will review our recent trip to Singapore. I’m working backwards in time.