Girls trip to Phnom Penh

Spelling Phnom Penh is a mission on its own! Getting there is actually much easier!

This is the 2nd post of this blog on Phnom Penh; as a guest writer, R had already written one after he came back nearly 2 years ago. I haven't re read it, may be I will before the conclusion of this one...

Anyway, N and I realized that both of our other halves had visited PP (for simplicity we'll use an acronym! do not believe that I have already forgotten how to spell it!) so we decided on a middle of the week trip to PP, going on a Wednesday morning coming back on Thursday night. According to all the guide books, it doesn't require much longer, thanks to the Khmer Rouge who have destroyed a lot of what was worth seeing...

After a lovely lunch on the poolside of our gorgeous hotel, we boarded our tuk-tuk to get to S-21, a high school that PolPot had transformed into the worse prison in the country, right in the middle of PP.

As in other sites of horror, there is not that much to see but the atmosphere is oppressing. There are lots of photos of the people who died there. A rough calculation gave a death rate above 90%...

The rare explanations provide really disgusting details : glass was added to windows to keep screams in so it wouldn't disturb the neighborhood, barbed wires blocked the open space in corridors so people would not jump and commit suicide etc

 

Throughout the visit, we made an attempt at piecing the history of Cambodia together but I have to admit that it is quite twisted. People have changed their mind several times regarding friends and enemies, making it complicated to follow.

One thing jumped out, all senior Khmer rouge members were highly educated, they had mostly been sent to university in France. What can make a human being do what they have done in their 4 years of power to their own country and their "camarades" is completely incomprehensible.

In order to lighten the mood, we moved on to the Russian market, cocktails, dinner and massage! After all, it is a girls trip!

The second day was planned out as a military battle in order to fit everything in before flying back to Sg. Let's say that the battle didn't really go according to plan as the grumpy lady at the entrance of the Royal palace refused to let us go in with a scarf around our arms (as you do in temples all around the world, but not in PP apparently...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

First mission aborted! 2 very annoyed French girls then proceeded to have an argument with the tuk tuk driver who doesn't seem to grasp the principles of negotiation: when he starts at 3$, his second move can NOT be 5$

Anyway, now annoyed by 2 local people, we proceeded to restore calmness at Wat Phnom temple.

Next stop was the art deco market, first looking for long sleeves teeshirt (to please Royal palace grumpy lady) and then moving on to proper tourist shopping: scarf, magnets, coasters, purse etc

 

It became clear that negotiation with prices going up is not uncommon, it led to a very hard core debate on 1/2 $ which took a while but I proudly won! (Thinking about it now, I feel a bit guilty, the 1/2$ had probably more significance for the lady than to me, I should have probably let it go...)

With our cardigans, newly bought check shirt, long pants and our grumpiness, we made it back to the Silver pagoda/Royal palace. After all it is the main thing to see in PP so we couldn't really be too snobby and ignore it...

We toured the palace for a short hour, completely melting in our long trousers and long sleeves. The palace who is still being used by the king (the son of the one who changed his mind about the French, the Americans, the Russians and the Khmer rouge several times!) is indeed very beautiful but we were disappointed by the silver pagoda which is meant to be the highlight because of the complete lack of effort made in showing it to its best and even taking basic care of it.

It's famous for the 5000 silver tiles on the floor. Most of them have been taped with brown Sellotape and then covered by carpets. The pagoda has then been filled with old furnitures showing thousands of small buddhas without a single explanation, making the solid gold, solid silver and missing solid bronze Buddhas be Buddhas in the middle of Buddhas.

No one could understand what was worth seeing and what was just a series of mass production Buddha. (let's say that we might not have been on our best spirit...)
The lack of photos is not linked to grumpiness or disappointment, it was just not allowed!

2 days was indeed just about right to see PP, in reschuffling the activities of the 2nd day, we forgot to see Hotel Royal which is the colonial equivalent of the Raffles in Singapore, never mind, we'll have to go to the Raffles for a Singapore Sling to compensate ;-)

Phnom Penh, the capital city

I have finally convinced R to be a guest writer on this blog, so here is his first attempt

M.

After the ancient Khmer capital city of Angkor, what's best than heading to the present capital city: Phnom Penh ? So after M decided it was time to go back to S'pore and work, we opted for the waterways (the alternative options are the air and the road): it happens that Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are almost connected through a huge lake and a river, both called Tonlé Sap (for further information about it you can have look at your old encyclopedia, or our friend Wikipedia).
Basically the journey takes about 6h on a speed boat that looks like a sardine can.

Fortunately, the can isn't packed and the sardines have room to lay on seats or on the roof (non secured area for sun burning). But don't mistake me, it is a lovely trip on a lake that looks like a sea and further on the river, trying to avoid the fishermen boats.

So 6 h later we arrive in a small city where the Tonlé Sap meet the mighty Mekong: it is Phnom Penh. We don't take much time visiting the area around the boat dock, as our primary objective is to reach our hotel. It should be fairly simple as the streets are numbered in a sequential order: odd numbers in the N-S direction and even numbers in the E-W direction. Unfortunately it looks like our Tuk-Tuk driver has not been told it was this simple and we have to navigate a bit before we can find our street and the hotel.
Then the next one and a half days are spent visiting the city, eating local food and relaxing in fancy cafés. I have to admit that you don't need that much time to visit Phnom Penh, but it is quite good to relax after the extensive visits in Angkor. Furthermore it is much cheaper.
But sometimes it is not easy to find what you are looking for: though streets are numbered sequentially, houses are not in the same street and we had to spend some time to find a restaurant that was finally closed… on a Sunday evening (something I am not used to anymore in S'pore).
Amongst the highlights of Phnom Penh, I can cite the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda,

some monkeys in a park in the centre of the city,

the covered market

and the tragic Tuol Sleng Museum (Security Prison 21 during the Khmer Rouge period).

R.

Angkor temples

R's family being over here, we needed to organise some trips abroad; Singapore can not provide touristic entertainement for a month!
First leg, Cambodia and the temples of Angkor. We were told to wait as much as we could before going to Angkor because after that temples will never be the same! So it is nearly a year after having arrived in Singapore that we make this trip.
After a very early flight, we are in Siem Reap around 10am. The first step is to get a cambodian visa. And i'm very disappointed that i couldn't get you a photo of the airport set up because it was highly entertaining (but i didn't fancy going to jail just to prove to the world how inefficient/ridiculously funny was the system!)
So first, give 20us$, a photo and your passport. Then imagine 10 men dressed in very formal navy blue suit sitting around a 20m long desk and actually throwing passport at each other by making them slide on the side. Most of them do nothing else than pushing the passport further along, until the last one furiously stamp the passport many times. And then you still have to see the immigration officer who stamps your passport another few times and then we are finally good to go!
We are staying in a very nice hotel where the manager can speak very good French. 1h later, we are climbing in our 2 tuk-tuk with our dedicated driver for the next 3 days! ( ok I admit I loved having a driver!!!!)
First day is about seeing the royal enclosure, including the very impressive Byron temple. From anywhere in this temple, you can see a minimum of 12 enormous faces built in stone.
We also learn how to say no to the 1$ postcards, the 1$ water and the 1$ books. Everything seems to cost 1$, the local currency, ril, is only used to give the change on half a dollar.
There are kids everywhere and babies tend to be naked...
Early afternoon, we walk in the step of Lara Croft in the temple used for the filming of Tomb raider. Trees are growing all over the stones, roots going everywhere, literally lifting the temple! It's hugely impressive, unfortunately, there are tourists everywhere!
Later on, we go to a higher temple to admire the sunset lights (the sun set itself was hidden by a huge cloud)
To finish off the day, we get bitten by giant nasty mosquitoes, we discover the pleasure of kmer massage (very similar to Thai) and have a great dinner of kmer food.
2nd morning is an early rise, today we abandon the tuk-tuk :-( for a car. These temples are much further away and by consequences a bit less touristy especially the ones which requires 45 minutes hiking or 380 steps climb!
In no particular order (because I can't remember), we saw some carvings done in a river bed, a beautifully carved temple in pinkish stone, a gigantic temple falling apart where local people took us by the hand and dragged us to places we would have never thought of going in (thinking we might be buried alive the next minute) and finally to a lost temple at the top of a hill.
Now try to attach the following photos to these temples!!! (bonus photos for the ones who answer correctly in the comments!)


I have to give credit to our driver for the day, who was wonderful: he came with us to do the 45 minutes hike. First we thought he was making sure we were staying on the track and weren't going to be blown off by the land mines but in fact he was the tour guide! There are no signs anywhere and without him we would have missed half of the stuff! Secondly, after each temple, at our return to the car, 4 glasses of fresh water were waiting for us as well as some fresh humid towels! So much luxury...
On this 2nd evening, I experiment a foot massage when the guys give a go to the fish spa. For the ones who don't know what it is (I was one of them a year ago), it's like putting you bare feet in an aquarium and then letting the fish having a go at your dead skin! Not for ticklish people...
On our final day in Siem reap, we finally make it to Angkor wat, the biggest, the most beautiful, the most impressive, the most restored temple. It is indeed gigantic and in very good order.
It is also packed of tourists but around a corridor it's always possible to find a quiet spot. For a broader view we climb to the top making sure our shoulders are covered and pulling on my pair of shorts (not too much) to make it look longer! (after all it is a religious place and lucky me, they are not as picky as in the Vatican)
After a morning on angkor wat, we are off to the floating village. We have quite a big boat just for ourselves and a guide who just can not shut up! The village is interesting, some of the house/boat are very colourful, there is also a floating church, a temple on piloti and a floating school. We stop at a place where there is a small crocodile farm, a kid scares me off really badly with the enormous snake he has around is neck and we get reaped off for lunch... Anyway, the view from the top platform was worth it. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at another "temple on a hill" where we meet a monk who seems to ask us to help him cleaning his monastry... (another lost in translation moment) Once again, beautiful view from the top:

After that, it is unfortunately time for me to abandon the rest of the group and to go back to Sg, they are now heading to Phnon Penh by boat.
(I'm working on convincing R to write an article about it, as a guest star)