Around & About in Phnom Penh

Wednesday 9th
we met up with the rest of the group last night, 9 of us in all plus the tour leader Jeff (an Aussie). So a nice small group, and there are another 5 to join us in Vietnam.

Today we started off from our hotel in "cyclo's", really cool, although a couple of the ladies were a little apprehensive, Win to her credit was fine. So a little tour around some of the streets close to our hotel and on the way to the Royal Palace. As usual another hot day creeping up to mid 30's, it was 29 degrees on the thermometer just outside of the hotel as we left at 8:30. My bloke was practicing his English, but at least he had a go as some of them didn't even talk to their passengers I found out later, he knew the names in english of places but constructing sentences and answering questions was a different matter. He also didn't care that we should pass all of the others and win the race to the Royal Palace.

How good do we look here on our way to the Royal Palace.

I must agree I look like a geriatric old man being pushed around on my wheel chair, well hopefully not quite there yet. The Royal Palace was very interesting and the guide was very passionate about ensuring he went thru all the details for each of the various buildings. The main building which we cannot access is for the King, and he was apparently in residence as the flag was flying over hos "house", the two major buildings are of importance that we can access are the Throne Hall and the Silver Pagoda (no shoes allowed). The Throne Hall is where the King (and Queen) are crowned, and will never sit upon the coronation throne but once. The Silver Pagoda consists of a floor completely tiled in square tiles about 6" square each weighing a Kg each, there are 5,300 plus tiles.

After the Royal Palace onto our AC equipped bus and off to lunch. Yet another excellent open air restaurant. The food is a rip off - not. Just $6.00 $7.50 USD for a meal ;-)

S21 - one of the horrendous security centres in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. This was originally a high school in Phnom Penh which was turned into a prison for Cambodians that objected to the Khmer Rouge, or who had academic  or intellectual backgrounds or looked "educated" eg wore glasses.

I am pleased that we came here, but also saddened about what humans can do to one another, and in this case it is their won Cambodian race they are torturing and killing, which is something I find very hard to understand, well in fact I don't.

I took photos that I am not going to put up her, if you want to read about S21 have a look at the links below to get some background. Our local tour leader was 9 at the time and he and his 10 brothers and sister were put on a farm as were all Cambodians, broken into various age groups, adults were also grouped by age. Families were split, luckily for him he was in the same camp as his sister, Unfortunately for him she died of starvation.

Khmer Rouge
Pol Pot
S21 - Tuol Skeng Genocide Museum

After S21 back to the hotel then  out to dinner.

Before Dinner we headed off to Raffles (Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Phnom Penh) for pre-dinner drinks. It is cocktail happy hour, normally $7.50 USD and now half price. We all went for a cocktail the Jeff our overall tour leader recommended, and once I remember the name I will add it here - bloody lovely !

Then onto dinner. Once again terrific Cambodian food, and as lunch so cheap, the expensive part being wine, Win and I are aboutr the only ones drinking wine, although during the day have been getting into the local beer - Angkor, not a bad drop