In & Around Phnom Penh

After Battambang, we headed for the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, a city of over two million people situated on the Mekong River.  Our first impression of the city was one of surprise – at how big it was, how fancy, how developed.  Given what we’d heard about how much poorer Cambodia is than neighboring countries, we were expecting Phnom Penh to be something along the lines of Kigali or maybe Kampala; we were definitely wrong.  While the city certainly has poor areas, it also has tall buildings, bright lights, nice restaurants, car dealerships, movie theaters, and shopping malls, as well as many beautiful temples.

The Fancy Guesthouse (yes, that’s its actual name), located near the city’s popular Riverside neighborhood, was everything we were hoping it would be after our shoestring-cheap hostel in Battambang – spotless, air-conditioned, and with comfortable beds, hot water, and a refrigerator, at $25/night for a triple room.

Phnom Penh’s culinary scene was also excellent – I realize I’ve said that about every place we’ve been, but this whole region seems to have amazing food everywhere (or maybe I’m just easily impressed)!  It was also cheap – we ate at one street café where every rice- or noodle-based dish on the menu was $1.50.  I also tried the Cambodian Kingdom Pilsner, which, like the other beers I’ve had here, was good.

We also ate at Phnom Penh’s night market one night, where the dining area is comprised of a ring of food stalls with mats on the ground in the middle, allowing customers to eat sitting on the ground, as many Cambodians typically do.  While my friends sampled all sorts of deep-fried unidentifiable meats, I stuck with a vegetarian noodle dish and some vegetable wantons.  Even that was pretty greasy, but dining at the night market was a great experience.

While in Phnom Penh, we visited two of Cambodia’s best-known Khmer Rouge sites, which have been turned into museums detailing the history of the genocide that occurred in Cambodia during the 1970s.  We first went to Tuol Sleng, the site of the infamous S-21 prison, where the Khmer Rouge imprisoned an estimated 20,000 people between 1975 and 1979.  All but seven of the prisoners held in Tuol Sleng died there or were taken to the nearby killing fields and executed.  The survivors, six men and one woman, were spared because they had skills, such as making art and repairing machines, that the prison commander considered useful.

After visiting Tuol Sleng, we went to Cheong Ek, one of the Khmer Rouge’s 343 killing fields and the spot where most of the S-21 prisoners were executed.  Around 20,000 people are believed to have been killed at Cheong Ek, most of them bludgeoned to death, and thousands of people are buried in mass graves there.  At the center of the memorial is a large Buddhist shrine filled with human skulls and bones, very reminiscent of the genocide memorials in Rwanda.  Today, Cheong Ek feels almost like a big peaceful park outside the city, and it’s nearly impossible to imagine the things that happened there twenty-five years ago.

We couldn’t help but notice that these museums have clearly not had nearly the money poured into them that Kigali’s genocide memorial museum has had, likely because the West doesn’t feel nearly as ashamed of or guilty about what happened there as about the Rwandan genocide.

We also saw some of Phnom Penh’s other major sites, though they weren’t nearly as significant.  The National Museum, Royal Palace, and Silver Pagoda were interesting, but not that amazing.  Mostly, lots and lots of Buddha statues.

One morning, we went on a bike tour through Grasshopper Adventures, a company the conducts bicycle tours all over Southeast Asia.  Like the other bike rides I’ve done during the trip, it was great.  We started in Phnom Penh and took ferries around several islands in the Mekong River.  Though the islands face the city, they were quiet and peaceful, had beautiful scenery, and they felt like they were worlds away from Phnom Penh.  It was about 100 degrees that day, but surprisingly the heat didn’t bother us too much.  During the ride, we stopped at a small silk factory and saw Cambodian women weaving silk on traditional looms.  It takes quite a long time to weave a single scarf or piece of cloth, and requires a lot of coordination (as I realized when I tried it!).  Later, we happened to stop for a short water break near a house where a Cambodian woman was drying mango.  In typical Cambodian fashion, she generously offered some of what she had to the group of strangers.  It was delicious.

Something else I have to mention is the workout fervor among Cambodians in Phnom Penh.  All along the riverfront is public exercise equipment – elliptical machines, stationary bikes, benches, and more.  Not only do people use the equipment, from about 5:00-7:00 in the morning, the entire area is full of people running, walking, playing badminton and hackeysack, and, in groups of probably up to a hundred people, taking tai chi and aerobics classes.  They set up huge loudspeakers for the aerobics classes and blare music through them all morning, and I’m told the classes are taught by the stars of Cambodia’s popular music videos.

Overall, Phnom Penh seems like it would be a great city to live in – it has many modern amenities but still feels a bit like a developing country, and is definitely more manageable than Bangkok.