Day 6 of 'A week in Cambodia'

We finally woke up roughly at 8am when the phone rang for probably the 100th time and Suporn had banged on our door for what seemed like eternity. We were still tired from the previous day's travel but also excited since we were going to the Angkor temples today. We had a quick breakfast and became aware of busloads (there were 3 buses) of Japanese tourists getting ready to leave for Angkor as well. I said to Abi "Looks like my idea of the temples being quiet & peaceful was not entirely right". Suporn immediately reminded us that he had asked us to get up early to avoid this crowd.

During the 15 minute drive to the gateway of Angkor temples, I read the Lonely Planet about Siem Reap & Angkor. Angkor was the capital of the ancient Khmer empire which ruled Cambodia from 9th-15th century AD. During the Angkor era, stone structures were built only for Gods. Mortals (King included) stayed in wooden structures which have not stood the test of time. The temple ruins of Angkor are located a few kms off Siem Reap between forests. There are over 1000 temples in the Angkor area. Many of them have been restored with the help of UNESCO and foreign governments aid.

We reached the entrance to Angkor area and had to buy an entry pass from a large official entrance booth. Entry tickets are controlled by a petroleum company Sokimex which takes 15% of the revenues as administrative charges. 75% of the revenue is given back to the finance ministry. At the rate of 40USD per person (for a 3 day pass) and over a million visitors, Angkor is a key source of revenues for the Cambodian government. Anyway, enough of money matters !

While I was planning this trip to Angkor, I had realized that all temples looked alike at first glance - stone ruins of temples, weeds growing from them, similar carvings on the stone. To enjoy the experience of Angkor, I had to know & understand the significance of what I was looking at. So I bought a guide book for 10USD afer a bit of haggling. The seller had realized that he could sell a few more books to the busloads of tourists (henceforth referred to as "the bus") than waste his time with me. Inspired by the bus listening to their tour guide in awe, I had taken a fancy to becoming a tour guide as well. I decided that I would be Abi's tour guide for our trip. I quickly started reading the book so that I could seem knowledgeable by the time we reached our first temple for the day.

Angkor temples have some specific styles & structures which are important to know to understand and appreciate the temples better. I wanted to write about it, but found a really clear (and short!) description on Wikipedia, so I am taking a short-cut and pasting the link here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Cambodia

Angkor Area Map


Our first Destination was Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is actually a fortified city of around 10 sq km which supported a population of one million during its peak. It is enclosed by a wall and encircled by a moat which used to have fierce crocodiles. The moat has dried up now. The city has 5 entry gates and we entered through the south gate, which is most popular since it has been almost fully restored. The gate has 54 demons on one side and 54 gods on the other side holding a naga and churning the ocean of milk.

From here, we went to Bayon at the centre of Angkor Thom city. Bayon is known for its 216 faces of Avalokiteshwara which is said to have more than a passing resemblance to the king Jayavarman VII himself. It is a symbol of his power & control over the kingdom. It is believed that most of the temples were built for this purpose. During Jayavarman VII's reign, Khmer Empire was divided into 54 provinces. Hence the temple is built on 54 towers. The 216 faces indicate that the all-seeing eyes of the king were keeping a watch on the 54 provinces from all directions. The guide book waxed eloquent about each face of Bayon looking like it had a slightly different expression based on the direction of the light and angle of viewing. I tried hard to visualize this as well, but couldnt. All faces appeared alike.

There were atleast a hundred people in Bayon with some tourists hugging one of the over the 100 faces and taking pictures flashing a victory sign ! I didnt understand their thrill in climbing statue and flashing a victory sign. But then I dont understand a lot of other things ! Abi wanted to get his picture clicked with one of the faces as well. So we found one which wasnt crowded. By the time I clicked the picture, 5 V-flashing people materialized out of nowhere.

After an hour at Bayon, we went to the nearby Elephant's terrace and Leper terrace. The sun was getting stronger by the minute. I vaguely remember the motions of going to these places but nothing more. The heat had gotten to me. Then I noticed that the heat had gotten to Abi more than me. He looked as red as a tomato and had sunburns on his face. Needless to say, he was in a sour mood.

We went back to the car and thankfully Suporn had the good sense to stock up on water. After a brief rest, we went to 2 smaller temples - Thommanom & Chau Say Thevoda. Both these temples were built in the 12th century and were dedicated to Shiva & Vishnu. Since Lonely Planet said they were both similar temples, we decided to go to only one of them - Thommanom since it was in a better condition. When we reached the entrance of the temple, I decided I wasnt upto it and seated myself under a shady tree and was content with the pictures & description in the guide book. Abi was tempted to do the same but then he felt since we had come all the way here, he had to see the temples and click pictures to prove his presence.

Well rested now, I was very excited about going to Ta Prohm which was the next big temple we planned to go to. Abi looked like he would drop to the ground anytime. As we entered Ta Prohm, we noticed that the Indian government had contributed to restoring and maintaining the temple. Abi saw the board with the Indian flag and was immediately energized. He insisted that I read out every single word about Ta Prohm from the guide book and we spend quality time here.

Ta Prohm is a buddhist temple dedicated to the mother of the king and close to 80,000 people were required to maintain the temple. It is quite unlike all the other temples we had seen. A large portion of the temple is not accessible today since they are blocked by large piles of stone blocks dislodged by roots of dying trees. To give people an idea of the extent of ruins the temples were in when they were found, Ta Prohm has been left to be swallowed by the jungle pretty much like it was found. I felt that the Indian government had chosen to sponsor the maintenance of the easiest temple. But then we found out that only the big trees have been left in place and the temple has been maintained to give it the appearance of being in a state of disrepair. Hard work indeed ! The temple looks awesome with crumbling walls being held in place by roots of the trees. It is said that the temple will collapse when the tress holding it up die. I think we easily spent an hour here. In the midst of tourists hugging tree roots and flashing victory signs, we did manage to get a few pictures too. There was one particular tree which was quite a favorite with tourists. Some tourists queued up and waited for their turn, others just jumped in from nowhere with a big smile, caps and victory signs. We recognized the first set of tourists as singaporeans and the second as Japanese. The third cateogory of people who watched this from the side (just the 2 of us) were Indians since we are used to standing and watching whenever anything remotely interesting happens.

After a tiring morning, we were really looking forward to lunch. Suporn took us to a small shack within the Angkor area. Abi decided he wanted lime juice to build his energy and informed the waiter that he didnt want it cold. For the next 5 minutes, Abi waited expectantly for the lime juice and conversation had stopped completely. Finally the waiter placed a piping hot lime juice in front of us and thats when Abi lost it completely. He shouted incoherently at the poor guy for a while, then regained his composure and asked for ice. We spent a good part of our lunch hour tying to cool the juice by adding ice pieces at regular intervals.

(Since Day 6 is getting to be really long, its 'To be Continued' in the next blog)

Day 5 of 'A Week in Cambodia'

After snoozing the alarm a few times, I realized there was no option but to get up since our bus was scheduled to leave at 7:00am. We threw in all our stuff in suitcases and went down to the breakfast hall.

All my happiness in the world depends on a nice, leisurely breakfast (specially during vacations). The breakfast buffet at Golden Sand was neither. Rows and rows of cambodian/south-east asian food with no veggie options. I had to satisfy myself with some cold slices of toast, a glass or orange juice and chocolate. After grumbling a bit (actually a lot) about the breakfast, I realized that the restaurant was empty but for the 2 of us. Looks like the others knew of better places to eat.

After breakfast, we set out to find a tuktuk to take us to the bus stop. Abi is averse to bargaining and was ready to pay an atrocious 5 USD for a 5 minute ride. He would have also willingly agreed to pay more if only the tuktuk driver had the good sense to ask for it. I haggled unsuccessfully for a while, not because I like to but because one of us had to. I thought of all the times Abi stepped up to kill the cockroach since I was more scared than him and decided it was my turn to step up now.

We reached the bus stop with 15 minutes to spare. Mekong Express is a bus service between Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh whose operational model is heavily influenced by airlines. Ground staff checked our tickets, secuirty tagged lagguage and checked it in. This done, we entered the bus and were greeted by a smiling lady. Every bus has a hostess who smiles, welcomes passengers on the bus and serves food. She also goes beyond the call of duty and acts as a tour guide, pointing out places of relevance in 2 languages. Her English is pretty difficult to understand. I have a feeling she writes her English script in Khmer (thats cambodian language) and reads it out because she paused in the middle of words, combined a few to make a new word and often missed punctuations. But her Khmer linguistic abilities are strong. This I know because I saw a few passengers nod understandingly when she spoke Khmer. Minor technicality that they were not locals.

Needless to say, we were sitting on the sun-side of the bus. After 4 hours we reached Phnom Penh from where we had to take another bus for Siem Reap, which was another 5 hour journey. We decided to eat a quick lunch at a nearby cafe. When we got back, lots of people were getting into the bus. We stood near the bus and someone quickly loaded our luggage inside. Abi tried to rush me into the bus. I decided I wasnt ready to brave another 5 hour journey without freshening up first. So I gave him the responsibility to make the bus to wait for me. I came back to see Abi waiting with the bags and the bus leaving.

I panicked and tried to pick up a bag and run towards the bus and signalled to Abi to do the same. Strangely, he seemed very calm. As I was trying to lift the bag, I vaguely heard him say that this was not our bus. I paid a little more attention to what he was saying and realized that while I was missing from the scene of action, Abi had been through the drama of our bags being loaded into the wrong bus. He said all the ground staff gave him dirty looks since they had to unload a lot of stuff to get our bags out. I was curious to know how he realized that it was the wrong bus. Apparently a couple who travelled with us from Shianoukville called out to him and informed him that this wasnt the right bus. I dont think they even knew where we were headed to ! But Abi being a big believer in the concept of trust quickly arranged for our bags to be unloaded.

Soon enough the bus arrived and we dutifully took our seats on the sun-side of the bus. The first couple of hours of the journey were fairly uneventful except for the occassional announcements made by the hostess. We stopped at a town on the way for some refreshments. We found a fruit-seller selling mangoes and got down from the bus to buy some. The stall next to ours was selling fried grasshoppers. It probably is a popular tea-time snack since people were buying them by the kilo. I had my fill of mangoes, got back into the bus and promptly fell asleep. Woke up to hear the hostess saying "Thank you for travelling with mekong Express". We had reached Siem Reap a little after 6pm. We were expecting pick up from the hotel. The driver quickly found us and we were on our way to relax after a tiring day.

All I wanted was some peace and quiet. But our driver (and later to be tour guide) was very interested in having a conversation. I completely ignored his attempts to be friendly and hoped we would reach the hotel soon. Abi on the other hand patiently answered his questions - yes we were from India, no we havent been to Cambodia before, yes we were married, no we didnt have children, yes we love Cambodia, no we didnt have a tour guide, yes we would be ok with him taking us to the temples. Mercifully the conversation stopped once he established that he was going to be our tour guide.

We dropped out bags at the hotel and went to the Old market area (Psar Chas) to have an early dinner. We ate at an Indian restaruant which was pretty bad - both food & ambience. Then we went for a foot massage to relax after a tiring day on the road.

Suporn (our driver & tour guide) had made plans of taking us to the temples before sunrise so we avoid the crowds and peacefully admire the temples in the early morning sun. Little did he know that sleep meant more to us than sunrise and temples !

Day 4 of 'A week in Cambodia'

Woke up to see stars. They were actually tiny pin pricks of light coming into the room through holes in the black curtains. Realized we had overslept only when we opened the curtains. We had ambitious plans of being on the beach at sunrise. Having reassured each other of our noble intentions, we had slept the previous night without setting an alarm. Fat chance we would have gotten up without one !

Even during holidays, I am fairly agenda driven. I sub-consciously plan out my entire day though I know its vacation time. Today was different. We had the entire day in front of us and nothing at all to do. Leisurely, we made our way to the beach. Found a cozy breakfast place on the beach and spent about an hour there. During this time, I saw many ferries leaving for nearby islands. I had half a mind to get into a ferry and do a trip of the nearby islands since that would fill my day with some activity. Abi argued that we really had 'planned' to do nothing today and we couldnt possible change plans. Since I couldnt refute such a strong argument, we settled ourselves on beach chairs and started reading.

Soon enough I was half-asleep. Suddenly I was woken up by a woman offering manicure-pedicure services right here on the beach. I dont know whether I was more angry at being rudely woken up or shocked at the idea of getting a pedicure done in public. I quickly shooed her away and got back to reading. Abi went for a quick dip in the water. Almost immediately, 2 children selling mangoes settled themselves on his chair and continued to stare at me. I decided that if I ignored them long enough, they would soon tire of staring at me and go away. It was becoming a huge effort to ignore them. Then suddenly 2 women appeared and were keen to take a photo with these kids probably to show their friends back home what a poor country Cambodia is. The smart kids refused to get a picture clicked unless these women bought mangoes. As soon as they bought it, a dozen other vendors (some children) appeared out of nowhere selling random stuff or offering massage services. At this point, I was internally gloating for having ignored them and saving myself of the pain these women had gotten themself into.

I paused reading (actually I had paused reading long time ago) and looked out at Abi in the water. He seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly and his quick dip had already lasted more than 30 mins. When he did come out of the water, we decided to take a walk along the beach. We realized that we were on a quieter part of the beach. Further ahead, the beach was really crowded. This is because there are a lot of budget/mid-range hotels near this part of the beach. I noticed that Cambodians would go into the water fully dressed and try to hitch up their pants or skirts to avoid getting wet. It immdiately reminded me of beaches in India. We walked a bit more. Soon the sun got stronger and the sand got hotter. So we decided to go back to the hotel and rest for the afternoon.

On reaching the hotel, we realized it was lunch time. Since we were too lazy to go out in the heat and find a restaurant, I decided to make maggi using the kettle in our hotel room. We were carrying enough stock of maggi and ready-to-eat food to last us for a week since we werent sure if we would find veggie food. I believe that if you are on a vacation the one thing you deserve is good food. We started watching a Bond movie on one of the TV channels. I must have fallen asleep because I suddenly saw credits rolling on the screen.

We went back to the beach by early evening and were there till sunset. Sunset was ruined by a cloud covering the sun till it set. Disappointed, we decided to take a walk in the town till dinnertime. When we were hungry finally, we found a moto (which is a nothing but a motorcycle & a driver). Abi & I squeezed into a space that could actually fit only one person. I could feel part of me suspended in the air as we drove through the one main road in the town. I couldnt have held on to Abi & the moto any longer when thankfully we found an Italian restaurant ahead. The food was so awesome that I realized I had mosquito bites all over my legs only after I finished my food. Small price to pay for wonderful food !

Next day morning at 7:00am we were to leave for Phnom Penh and from there to Siem Reap. It would be a long day with almost 10 hours and 550 km of road travel !!

Day 3 of 'A week in Cambodia'

I got up in the morning to find Abi looking unhappily at the cell phone in his hand. Turned out it was because our cell phones had no battery left and we had forgotten to get our adaptor. I am completely ok to live without a cell phone, sometimes I dont even realize that I am not carrying one with me. But Abi feels crippled without it. Actually without any of the things that connect him to the rest of the world (phone, newspaper, TV, Internet). "Duniya mein kya ho raha hai" is extremely important to know. Also, since cell phone was our way to keep in touch with family during the week long trip it made sense to keep them charged and be accessible at all times.

We went down to the reception of our hotel and asked for an adaptor. After a quick chat, we realized that adaptors are not a very commonly understood term in Cambodia even among English speaking locals. Times like these are a true test of your communication abilities - when you think you are being extremely clear about what you are saying and the other person simply cannot understand what you want.

We understood that we need to find other ways of communicating what we wanted. Abi thought it would be simpler to communicate terms associated with adaptor. The 2 words he chose were electrical & electronics. He went up to a tuktuk and asked for 'electrical' and the tuktuk driver said 'central market' in return. Abi beamed at how simple this was turning out to be. So we went to Central market and waded through stores (actually stalls) of perfumes, clothes, footwear
and other things not related to electricity. We asked another person for 'electrical' and he said we need to go into the market which was unfortunately closed since today was a sunday. We decided to peep into the market anyway to check if it was actually closed and we found that the market sold 'electric fans'.

We still had another word at our disposal - electronics. Electronics, as it turns out, is a commonly understood word. So we were directed to a cell phone shop. Abi said cell phones have become as ubiquituos as FMCG goods and confidently strode in thinking that the store owner would have an adaptor waiting for him. No such luck ! We decided that a change in strategy was in order. What began was a session of Dumb Charades - Abi mimed connecting the charging wire to
his phone and plugging it in a socket. Then he showed his phone's battery level and mimed that it was increasing. The store owner was super confused but a customer at the store (so far a spectator in this story) immediately got it and explained something to the tuktuk driver. Excitement was in the air ! With a sense of purpose the tuktuk driver drove in circles around the city. Finally we went to a store (which we had passed thrice during our city trip) and the
tuktuk driver produced an adaptor after exactly 5 seconds of talking to the store owner. We were thrilled at having found an adaptor and getting a tour of the real city (and not just tourist spots) as a bonus.

On our way back, which surprisingly (or probably not) took only 2 minutes to reach the hotel, Abi said that adaptors are difficult to find in Cambodia because not many people travel abroad and hence dont need it. I wanted to say something in return (in addition to nodding in agreement), so I said Cambodia has the same electrical plugs as Thailand. We were both stunned at why I would want to share this useless trivia and were silent for rest of the journey.
All this activity in the morning made us super hungry. We found a nice cafe along the river and had a long brunch. We would be travelling to Sihanoukville in a couple of hours and needed to eat enough to last the 5 hour journey. Out hotel had quoted 125USD as the taxi fare from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, which is almost equal to the airfare from Singapore to Phnom Penh. So we decided to be smart and take the bus which would only cost us 6USD per head.

We reached the bus station a good hour before the bus was to leave (punctuality is our forte). The bus station was spread out over a 200 sq ft restaurant and a parking space for 2 buses on the road. About 50 people crowded into this restaurant waiting for their buses. I sat next to a woman eating noodles and crying at the same time. I wanted to ask her what was wrong. But as soon as she saw me looking at her, she stopped eating (but continued crying). Abi made me
take ownership of our 2 suitacases and went to find out details of the bus route, Sihanoukville etc. He didnt return for a long time, or probably it just seemed like that with one crying woman next to me, a plate of uneaten noodles in front of her, a swarm of flies over it and a creaking fan above us.

Finally, it was time for our bus to leave. We handed our tickets and I got in. Abi suddenly ran away and said "you go in, I'll be here in a while". I was most upset. I like things to be planned. Sudden changes to the plan (like not getting into the bus after we reached the door) have an unsettling effect on me. The bus started moving and there was no sign of Abi yet. I got up and said "wait! wait!" and everyone stared at me. For some obscure reason I said "bus roko" in
Hindi and miraculously the bus stopped. Turns out the bus moved ahead to make way for another bus behind it. I was highly flustered and at this moment Abi entered looking victorious with 2 bottles of water in his hand.

We sat at our seats and I avoided talking about events of the past 10 mins or so. Abi usually senses when I have been through a huge embarassment (because it happens often with me) and waits patiently till I want to tell him about it. By now the bus was full and I thought it was time for us to leave. I was wrong ! A man entered with 6 red plastic chairs and placed them in the passageway between seats to accomodate an additional 6 passengers. Only after this, did the bus leave for Sihanoukville.

Sihanoukville is a beach town in the southern Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. It is also the only deep water port in the country. It is not as popular among tourists as Siem Reap and Phnom Penh probably since it is not connected by air to these popular tourist spots. I can imagine how a bus journey like ours would be a deterrent to many. I had included this place in our trip for 2 reasons - (1) It gave us a chance to do a long road trip and see the real country (2) It has fewer tourists. But I didnt know that tourists had been kidnapped & killed enroute to Sihanoukville by the Khmher Rouge as recently as 1994. The place is supposedly safe now with the demise of Khmer Rouge & the political stability in Cambodia. There are also plans to connect it via air to Siem Reap and this is expected to result in a tourism boom.

I was seated by a window on the side of the bus facing the sun. Somehow we always sat on the sun-side on all our bus journeys in Cambodia. We followed the national highway NH3 to Sihanoukville, which was in good shape throughout. I had expected the route to be green with fields and forests. But most of the land was barren. Since I was tired, I took an nap despite the heat. Woke up to find that the bus had stopped for a 10 min break.

We got down to get something to eat. I was tempted to buy the cut fruits since they are a healthier option to snacking on chips. Abi reminded me that Lonely Planet said cut fruits are unsafe since they are usually left in the open for days. While I waited for Abi to get his coke, a pleasant-looking woman stood by my side and spoke to me in fluent English. From our conversation, I understood that she was Cambodian but has been living in the US for 10 years. She was back for a month-long holiday and was pleasantly surprised at how much the country has changed (developed) from what she remembers it to be. She recognized us as Indians and was very surprised since she hasnt seen any Indians visiting Cambodia. But then, she hasnt been in the country for 10 years now.

A loud horn signalled that our bus was ready to leave. We got back to our books. Rest of the journey was uneventful. We reached Sihanoukville bus terminus at 5:30pm and were immediately approached by moto drivers. Moto is a motorcycle taxi that seats 1-2 passengers. Tuktuks are few in Sihanoukville. Abi & I got on 2 different motos and went to our hotel - Golden Sand.

It is a nice looking hotel with extremely bright rooms. Probably that is why all rooms have black curtains. As soon as we reached the hotel, we rushed to the beach to get a view of the sunset. We stayed on the beach till dark and then left to find an Indian restaurant. We took a tuktuk to Weather station hill. The place had a few restaurants and a lot of shady night clubs. We found the restaurant we wanted quite easily. It was dimly lit, had plastic tablecloths, rickety wooden chairs and a handful of lizards. Since we were too tired to find another place, we put up with all this and patiently waited for the food. The food turned out to be awful as well. We went back to the hotel looking forward to a relaxing day at the beach.

Day 2 of 'A week in Cambodia'

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia. It is also the largest, wealthiest and most populous city in the country. We planned to spend only a day and half here.

We woke up early in the morning and cautiously peeked into the balcony to see if the shady women from the previous night were still there. Thankfully they were not and we went out to get our fresh air and a view of the river. Soon enough we realized that the balcony in the room wasnt really a part of the room. It was a public balcony with just an entrance to it from our room. So much for our "super deluxe" room! Anyway, I had a feeling that today would be a good day. Mornings (specially vacation mornings) have that effect on me usually!

Our first destination of the day was killing fields (15 km from the main city). This is the place where the Khmer Rouge killed 17000 people and buried them in mass graves. It is a chilling reminder of the atrocities of Polpot & his Khmer Rouge regime.

The place was quiet, more so because we had arrived before the tourist buses. Mass graves were visible as huge depressions in the field. At the edge of the graves, there are small wooden boards carrying the number of bodies found in that grave. We moved from one grave to another in a daze. I personally found the place very disturbing (the place clearly isnt for the faint-hearted).

At the centre of the field (which was once an orchard), there is a memorial which houses the remains of the victims - skulls & bones exhumed from the graves, clothes worn by the victims etc. Even from a distance I knew this wasnt something I wanted to see. I got the point without having to see stacks of skulls arranged in tiers by age. Abi is definitely stronger than me and refused to leave the place without visiting the memorial. During this time, I chose to find a quiet place under a tree and read about Cambodia's history and Polpot.

A memorial serves as a great reminder of the atrocities committed against cambodians, but displaying their remains only cheapened and trivialised the sufferings of the victims. How is neatly arranging skulls of 8000 victims for public display any less inhuman than what Polpot did? My strong reactions are also a function of how easily scared I am.

From here we went to the Tuol Sleng Museum which like the killing fields is also a testament to the crimes of Khmer rouge. In 1975, Polpot's security forces took over a school and converted into a high security prison. It becamse the largest detention centre in the country. The school has now been converted into a museum to serve as a testament to the crimes of Khmer Rouge.
When we entered, it just seemed like any other school except it had a ticket counter to charge an entry fee. But each classroom said a disturbing story of torture. There was a rusted bed, an instrument of torture and a few grainy B&W pictures of the torture in each room. Apparently the Khmer Rouge liked to keep records, so they have pictures and details of all the tourtures over a 3 year period. There was also a cambodian map made out of skulls in one of the galleries. I simply cannot understand what is it with displaying skulls !!

Tuol Sleng Museum is just as disturbing (probably even more) as the killing fields. However, we were surrounded by busloads of tourists which reduced the impact of the whole experience. A camera-happy couple posed for a picture with a victory sign and a 'cheese smile' near one of the horrific exhibits which had a man chained at his wrists and part submerged in water through which a live electric wire was passed. Tourists I tell you !

After an hour here, we went to the nearby russian market to shop for some souvenirs. We looked around for a bit and soon enough realized that both of us arent the souvenir shopping types. We were quite hungry by now and went around looking for 'Shiva Shakti' - an Indian restaurant highly recommended by Lonely Planet. The food was awesome and the ambience even better. We spent a good hour and a half at the restaurant completely focussing on the food and our conversaton was limited to exclamations of how good the food was! Post-Lunch we had a quick glance at the Independence monument since it was very near the restaurant anyway. Or rather, the restaurant was near the Independence monument! It (the monument not the restaurant) was built in 1958 following the county's independence from France and is the center of all activity during national days. On other days, like when we went, it is quiet and really nothing to write about.

Tired from the morning's activities and as a way to escape the hot afternoon sun, we planned to go for foot reflexology at the "Seeing Hands" massage place (again recommended by Lonely Planet). But the place was fully booked for the next 4 hours so we decided to give massage a miss. Instead we went to Wat Phnom. Its a Pagoda which marks the founding place of Phnom Penh. Long, long ago a lady named Penh found 4 buddha statues here and built a hill (known as Phnom in Khmer). Thats how the city got its name - Phnom Penh. Like any half decent temple in India, Wat Phnom also has its share of beggars lining up along the stairs. They constantly followed caucasians expecting good money. No one gave us a second glance. I am sure they figured out we didnt have any money to spare :)

From here we wanted to go to the Golden palace. However, that closes during afternoons. So we had about an hour to kill which we spent getting a massage. It was a fairly shady place and and I am going to skip writing about it. At 4pm, we queued up to get into the Golden palace. Women with bare arms or short skirts were given additional clothes to adequately cover themselves up. For that matter men wearing shorts were also given a sarong (dont know if it is actually called that). Golden Palace is the perfect touristy place to get a smiling picture taken. Being a complete tourist at heart, I obviously wanted to get a picture clicked with Abi. He was given the job of finding one person to get our photo clicked. Of the few hundred people there, he didnt think anyone qualified for the job. So both of us have our individual similing pictures with the Golden Palace in the background. You might wonder why he was given the job of finding someone to click our picture when I could have done it myself. I actually couldnt since fundamentally he is good with talking to people and I am not, specially people I dont know.

The Golden Palace also had a silver Pagoda, which we saw from a distance but didnt go in because we found something more appealing - an ice cream vendor. I had an orange ice candy which gave me orange teeth for the next hour. During this time, I smiled for the camera with an obvious effort to hide my teeth and it shows in all pictures !!

Next in the to do list was the National Museum. The museum is right next to Royal Palace and has over 5000 objects are on display including Angkorian era statues, lingas and other artifacts. We are both not very keen to visit musuems because we just dont get what the fuss is about these places. Atleast I pretend to look as interested as the other people around me, so that I dont come across as uncultured. Abi doesnt even try. There was a room full of Buddhas and each was from a different era and a different style. I spent some time trying to understand these differences. I also looked at each statue from various angle and gave understanding looks hoping other people around thought I was enlightened. But I wasnt getting it. Abi said we were wasting our time and that all statues looked the same to him. Its usually difficult to get him to change his mind about things he doesnt like so I stopped pretending to be interested in the statues around. We took a whirlwind tour of the museum and hold the record of going through the museum in the fastest time - 23 minutes. I know people who spent that much time on a single artifact. You may want to know how - we saw a woman take notes of a statue when we entered and she was still there when we left. So unless she was pretending like me (and she did a good job if she was pretending), she would have spent the entire day there.

Anyway, we went back to the hotel after a day well spent. We planned on taking a sunset cruise to unwind. Phnom Penh is at the confluence of Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers. Our cruise went towards the confluence point and we had a brilliant view of the sunset (first and only time in Cambodia though we spent more than a week here). After a peaceful hour long cruise, we returned to the hotel and decided to take a walk along the river. I was walking on the side of the road with the Lonely Planet in my hand and Abi by my side. I remember looking at the map really closely since I was trying to locate the restaurant we wanted to go for dinner and then suddenly the map was upside down. Since I am quite bright, I quickly realized it was because I had been toppled over by a tuktuk. The next thing I remember is a sharp pain in my back and Abi saying something about keeping my eyes open when I walk. The next 10 minutes were a daze. I was more shocked than hurt. I recovered quickly when Abi promised me a good dinner. We went to this French restaurant where some part of the proceeds go to charity (forgot the name of the place). Good food, great conversation.

On our way back, Abi & I discussed about how Cambodia is an expensive place specially for people travelling from India because all transactions are in USD with least count being 1$. Imagine paying 50 rupees to go from your home to a few streets away!! Abi told me tourism is the biggest contributor to Cambodia's GDP and Angkor Wat is the tourist hot spot. It no wonder then that everything in Cambodia has Angkor wat on it - Hotel names, national beer and even the national flag! We went back to our hotel, read a bit and slept early since we were to travel to Sihanoukville the next day.