Kampuchea!
After the epic trip getting to Phnom Penh, we spent a couple of days getting a feel for the place on foot. We got massages at "Seeing Hands" - a chain of massage shops where the practitioners are all blind - which were the best massgaes we've hand in SE Asia so far, and we walked around the hill on which stands Wat Phnom. The 'hill' is the size of a rather large roundabout, which is what it actually is, and it also serves as a sort of public park with its own population of monkeys in the trees and young water-sellers on the ground. (One young girl followed us right around the whole thing with her constant litany of "Water bottle sir, it's a water bottle sir." Alec started mimicking her, turning it into a kind of rap rhythm, which she found pretty funny. Finally we bought water off her for a third of her asking price, and then later one of her cheeky water-seller friends told Alec that she was going to box him for it the next day.)
Yesterday, we got around to doing the tourist things. ALL of them in one day.
We went to a firing range and squeezed a magazine off an AK-47. (We decided against firing the antiaircraft or the rocket launcher, or from throwing grenades into the pond. Restrained, no?) Today Alec read that the ranges are now apparently illegal - oops.
Ironically, the next stop was the killing fields at Cheong Ek. Harrowing. Closely followed by the infamous Khmer Rouge prison of Tuol Sleng, through which most of the victims at Cheong Ek came. Good god. I mean, we saw the terror museum in Budapest, but that torture prison was an unmarked building in the city. Tuol Sleng was a school. A School! Some of the cells still had the damn chalkboards up.
For a bit of light relief after that, we visited the Royal Palace. In the middle of these soaring Buddhist pagodas and temples with their golden-and-blue tiled roofs, each built by successive kings, is a white two-story confection in concrete and iron lacework - the Napoleon III 'pagoda'. There is even a lifesize statue of him in the grounds, on horseback, carrying that damn napoleonic hat.
Well, that was yesterday. Today we find ourselves in Siem Reap (which means 'Siam Defeated', apparently celebrating the reclamation of Angkor) which is the town from which you get to the Angkor site. Siem Reap is a bustling town, but mostly, it just isn't Cambodia. There is a LOT of money here, and the centre of town is like Melbourne or Paris - bright colours and rich furnishings, alleyways jam packed with exquisite bars and eateries, art galleries that turn out to be restaurants, cafes that end up being art galleries as and of themselves with their decor, music on the streets and everything you could want for sale in easy going, beautifully turned out shops. It is very very easy to spend a lot, a LOT, of money here. But I think it is beautiful and spellbinding. Reality isn't far away, however - our guesthouse is on an unpaved road.
Tomorrow is our first day to Angkor. We're going to buy 3 day passes - it is too huge to see in one day, with Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, the Bayon, and all the small sites in the area that have been reclaimed by the trees... Can't wait!
My burn is healing - the doctor said it was not infected and gave me a whole dressing regime for the next week - so thanks all for your enquiries. I hope to make it through Cambodia without any new injury or, if that proves impossible, to at least injure the OTHER leg next time!
Yesterday, we got around to doing the tourist things. ALL of them in one day.
We went to a firing range and squeezed a magazine off an AK-47. (We decided against firing the antiaircraft or the rocket launcher, or from throwing grenades into the pond. Restrained, no?) Today Alec read that the ranges are now apparently illegal - oops.
Ironically, the next stop was the killing fields at Cheong Ek. Harrowing. Closely followed by the infamous Khmer Rouge prison of Tuol Sleng, through which most of the victims at Cheong Ek came. Good god. I mean, we saw the terror museum in Budapest, but that torture prison was an unmarked building in the city. Tuol Sleng was a school. A School! Some of the cells still had the damn chalkboards up.
For a bit of light relief after that, we visited the Royal Palace. In the middle of these soaring Buddhist pagodas and temples with their golden-and-blue tiled roofs, each built by successive kings, is a white two-story confection in concrete and iron lacework - the Napoleon III 'pagoda'. There is even a lifesize statue of him in the grounds, on horseback, carrying that damn napoleonic hat.
Well, that was yesterday. Today we find ourselves in Siem Reap (which means 'Siam Defeated', apparently celebrating the reclamation of Angkor) which is the town from which you get to the Angkor site. Siem Reap is a bustling town, but mostly, it just isn't Cambodia. There is a LOT of money here, and the centre of town is like Melbourne or Paris - bright colours and rich furnishings, alleyways jam packed with exquisite bars and eateries, art galleries that turn out to be restaurants, cafes that end up being art galleries as and of themselves with their decor, music on the streets and everything you could want for sale in easy going, beautifully turned out shops. It is very very easy to spend a lot, a LOT, of money here. But I think it is beautiful and spellbinding. Reality isn't far away, however - our guesthouse is on an unpaved road.
Tomorrow is our first day to Angkor. We're going to buy 3 day passes - it is too huge to see in one day, with Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, the Bayon, and all the small sites in the area that have been reclaimed by the trees... Can't wait!
My burn is healing - the doctor said it was not infected and gave me a whole dressing regime for the next week - so thanks all for your enquiries. I hope to make it through Cambodia without any new injury or, if that proves impossible, to at least injure the OTHER leg next time!