Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh – the most french town here I met so far. Altough being the capital, I guess you can see all what is to see in just one day – if you get up early. If you take the markets as well, maybe half a day on top of it, but that it is.

Going off the beaten track here? No way, that’s not what I would recommend. It seems the town is still more dangerous than I had believed, at least as from what I was told by hotel staff and my taxi driver today. But then again you find so many nice people, telling you to take care of your things, that most of the people just must be honest. But read on for examples:

Maybe last things first: Yesterday night I thought I need to have dinner at a small indian restaurant, recommended by my guidebook. So I just waived a moto driver (motos being the usual kind of transport here) and showed him on my map, where I wanted to go (since he didn`t speak english). Well, he looked at the map with much effort and said OK. While on the way we then had to ask twice where we should go now. Each time the people we asked sent us not only to totally wrong places, but also to completely wrong directions! And wow, something happened I did not expect at all – there are streets in Phnom Penh that have NO LIGHTS!!! For the first time down here, I became a bit frightened 8-}
Of course I tried to look brave and since we were pretty fast on the moto, there was hardly anything that could happen to us.
Anyway, after 40 minutes we finally found the place. I was one of three guests, and shortly after I had ordered suddenly the electricity went off – no lights in the restaurant. The shop owner was quite quick in providing us with candles, so this probably occurs more often than not. Hm, candle light dinner of a different kind.
Thanks God after dinner I found another moto driver just across the street to take me home safely. Folks, I tell you, this is kind of adventure I don’t need to often.

Anyway, what else is to see in Phnom Penh? Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda (named after severel thousand floor tiles of pure silver, each weighing 1 kg), the National Museum and then of course the „famous“ Toul Sleng Prison and the corresponding „Killing field“. It just can`t be described here with words, what happened in the time of the Khmer Rouge, it’s just too horrific. Just in that one prison used for „interrogation“ only 7 or so out of 20.000 people survived. Among other interrogation methods there were e.g. these two:

• Hang prisoners head down into a tank of water to nearly drown them to make them talk and sign confessions
• If prisoners wanted to change their sleeping position in their cells they had to ask the guards first, otherwise being punished (electro shocks, being hit with cables)

Does that somehow ring a bell?

Today I saw the corresponding „killing field“. They excavacated some 8.500 dead bodies there (men, women, children) and they still haven’t covered the whole area. I was quite surprised that the actual piece of land, where it all happened, was not very big – obviously it doesn’t need much space in order to be cruel to human beings. I hope one day people will learn from these examples and never ever do such or similar things again.

Apart from that, Phnom Penh as a town is quite nice (for an Asian city) – you find quite many buildings that are actually nice, although all of them are behind high fences.

Tomorrow it is off to Vietnam, first stop is in Hué. I am already curious, how I will like it.