Brian, Sara, Haruka and I set out for 10 days in Cambodia on April 26th. There were no direct flights from Tokyo to Phnom Penh (or anywhere else in the country) so we flew into Bangkok first and stayed overnight in the airport. I didn’t want to bother figuring out the city in one short night, and in hindsight, I’m happy I made that decision. So we slept in the airport. Less comfortable than I’d imagined. The new Bangkok airport is all steel and concrete. Including the chairs. I’d read somewhere that one could nab the pillow and blanket from the plane for the overnight in the airport. Definitely good advice. The airport feels like a meat locker.
Our flight left for Phnom Penh at 8~ish the next morning and landed around 9~ish. We had flown from, so-I’ve-read, the largest airport in the world to a capital city airport the size of a small-town elementary school. The airport ATM promptly ate Brian’s bankcard, so our first adventure was flagging someone down to help us. No problem. He’d have to pick it up from the city bank branch in the morning. I was skeptical, but it worked as the woman had claimed. We were worried, but couldn’t do anything ‘til morning. Might as well get moving. Our hotel had arranged a car to pick us up. Not free of charge. We paid the standard rate, but they made sure to get our money. Clever.
I wish I could’ve written this as I’d experienced it. The roads! The driving! No traffic lights. No stop signs. There were some lines painted on the blacktop, but no one seemed to notice. We were surrounded by motorbikes. Sometimes a whole family of five balanced on one seat. Sometimes a whole dead hog strapped to a board laying flat on the seat. There were also a few tuk-tuks around, but not so many out towards the airport. The car was outnumbered and swerved early and often around everything in its way, often into oncoming traffic, without seeming to notice any possibility of danger. The driver just kind of grinned every time we gasped in fear. I’m sure it was fun for him.
Looking out of the car, I was astonished by the crumbling structures, garbage, filth, poverty. There was construction everywhere. But that shouldn’t conjure images of tractors or cranes or any machine. People were breaking up the hard dirt with shovels, forming clay bricks, and building wood frames by hand. All around us. It was strange to see so much activity, that had obviously been going on for a while, and still so little of anything actually constructed. That began to change as we moved into the city towards the center. There were occasionally very large buildings housing government offices or nicer hotels, but often these were right next to wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs. It was very difficult to differentiate between poverty and wealth. In fact, I never mastered that ability while I was there. It was obvious that some places were cleaner than others, or had nicer things, but there was just as much garbage piled in front of the nice buildings as there was in front of…every other place.
Driving into the center of town, the buildings became taller. All about 4 or 5 floor apartment buildings with open porches and restaurants or other shops on the ground floor. We stayed at Dara Reang Sey Hotel, which had recently renovated the building across the street from their old premises and had relatively nice rooms for 20US a night. We arrived around 10AM, had showers, and headed out by 11AM.
Have I mentioned yet? Cambodia smells horrible!!! Wait. I really have to find a better word than that. Putrid. Fetid. Revolting. I still feel a little sick if I ponder that smell for very long. This first day was really the worst. Partially because my body (yes, not just nose, but whole body) was not used to such an insult. Also because we headed out at the height of the heat on one of the hottest days we had there. That smell, it turns out, was mostly wafting from a SE Asian delicacy: the durian fruit. I had never heard of it before coming to Japan. But not surprising for a food-obsessed culture, the durian often shows up on Japanese shows as a “CHALLENGE!” So I knew something stinky was waiting for me, because I’d seen the “hilarious!” reactions of Japanese TV personalities when they were first exposed to it.
But the whole city reeked of it. The fruit already smells like rotting flesh, but there was also plenty of actual rotting flesh for sale in the markets and festering in the gutters. Perhaps you have taken my meaning that it was not a pleasant smell.
Nevertheless, Brian urged us to adventure on foot around the area, just to have a look around. We headed south of our hotel towards the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. The tuk-tuk drivers unfailingly offered us their services, but we resisted, and they were pleasant and moved on. Mostly. We stumbled upon our first market just north of the Palace area. Fruit!!! So much fruit. And vegetables! Large pieces of pork and beef. Whole plucked chickens. Baskets of finger-sized dead fish. Plastic buckets of still-writhing live fish. Some kind of tiny clam tossed in a red powder. This market covered several blocks. Each vendor sat on the ground with her goods in baskets or directly on a tarp out in front of her. The meat was on boards placed on top of cardboard boxes. It was over 100°F. You could breath in the flies. They were swarming on and around the meat and fish. And that horrible smell! We kept walking, propelled by narrowing paths between vendors, the stench, and the embarrassment of obviously being clueless about everything around us. We moved fast enough that we did not realize we had walked into the garbage pit at the back of the market until we were almost ankle deep in it. Though, to be fair, there was garbage everywhere, and it was hard to tell when it had been purposefully collected.
We backtracked quickly and headed out another direction towards fresher air. Even Brian, who is not a complainer like me, was overwhelmed by that smell.
We headed south again, and were told by a Khmer tuk-tuk driver with a ridiculous Australian accent that the palace was not open during the middle of the afternoon. He’d be happy to take us to the Toul Sleng museum or some other place for a few hours. Or we could go to the shooting range.Yeah. I’d read about that scam before. So we just kept walking. Of course, it turns out that the Palace does indeed close for a few hours mid-afternoon. Oh.
We crossed the street to the riverfront, putzed around for a few minutes, then decided to head back north towards Wat Phnom until the Palace re-opened.
I should describe the riverfront for a second. I had read about this area, the Sisowath Quay. ‘The charming river walk where local Khmers come to have evening picnics every night.’ Charming, it was not. There was a river. And there was a broad, broken sidewalk along the bluff above the river. The bluff had balding patches of tall grass interspersed with red, rock-hard clay and more red dust swirling above it. Garbage, of course, is a given by now. It was noon. It was hot. It was not scenic or pleasant or charming in the least.
We continued up the walkway, turned west into the city for a block or two, and found ourselves at Wat Phnom. This is the Wat for which the town was named. Legend has it that a wealthy old woman commissioned the Wat to be built on the top of a large man-made hill after flooding had destroyed other religious buildings in the town. It is the oldest and most important temple in Phnom Penh. Entry was 1US, but anyone could easily enter without paying. There was no regulated entrance, just a booth on one side of the hill a few feet from the steps leading to the top. Monkeys climbed all over place, and mine victims hobbled around looking sad and trying to sell books or postcards of the area. We climbed the steps to the top and had a look around. There were all kinds and shapes of Buddha statues crowded in the center of the main hall, surrounded by ornaments and colorful things. The wall murals had mostly been restored and were in full color. It was really quite small. The majority of the structure is the approach to the small central prayer room. It didn’t take long to go through it. We were getting hungry.
We headed back south towards any of the restaurant cafes that lined the street opposite the river walk. Despite its un-charmingness, this was the tourist drag of the city. We picked the first place we found. The Rendezvous. Not BBQ. It had large wicker chairs arranged on an open ground-floor patio area, covered by large awnings and sporting some fantastic water-spritzing fans. The menu was in English, and offered mostly French or English inspired dishes with a few Khmer favorites. I tried the fish amok, which is one of the famed delicious dishes of Cambodia. Steamed fish in a coconut and chili oil sauce, served with rice. I was feeling adventurous, even after the market experience that morning. It was fantastic! Not too sweet. Oily, but not greasy. Really very nice. I think I paid 2US.
After lunch, we headed back to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. We passed the gauntlet of 12 year olds selling water to enter the grounds, paid our 2 bucks (5 to bring in my camera), rented a shirt to cover my bare shoulders, and headed in. The grounds were huge. Wide, sculpted gardens, watered and cut grass, paved walkways, and meters of large potted flowering trees. Nothing like anything I’d seen outside the enclosing walls. The structures were white with yellow-gold curly-cue roofs. The ornamentation was limited to the doorways, windows and roofs. Inside, most had fantastic murals in various stages of restoration. The details and flourishes reminded me of the Florentine-print paper popular for bookmaking, with lots of grinning monkeys and other animals. It took a while to go through the whole campus, but we had finished by about 4PM.
Back out through the gauntlet, we gave in and bought some water. It was certainly welcome and necessary by that point.
We walked south to a little park to kill time before heading back to the river. River cruises started around 5PM, and we found someone willing to take us out for an hour for 3US per person. Bought a couple of beers from the same guy up on the pathway, then headed down the bluff to the man’s boat. The boat was about 12feet long, wooden, powered by some kind of gas engine, and had a table and sitting area up above a small cabin where the family likely lived. It was just the four of us, the driver, and his son, who helped to keep things running. He took us south down the Tonle Sap River around the bend to the Mekong. There was a bit of a floating village on the east side of the peninsula (who’s name eludes me). Little floating wooden shacks with electric wires running between the houses to power their TVs. Looked like a disaster waiting to happen, but it had clearly worked for years. People waved or yelled “Hello!” to us from the water as they bathed. We motored back the way we came and saw the sun set behind the Royal Palace and the riverfront street. Everything was so pleasant in the evening light and cool. When we had climbed back up the bluff after our boat ride, people crowded the riverfront picnicking, playing some kind of hacky sack and badminton, and just lazing around. It was great. Charming, even. There was so much gentle energy. That was the first time I had felt safe and comfortable since arriving in Phnom Penh.
We headed over for dinner in another similar restaurant. European and Khmer food served in an open air seating area. We were all pretty exhausted so we headed back to the hotel after dinner and crashed by about 9:30PM.
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