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.