Back to Phnom
Penh…
Phnom
Penh is a big city but it lacks the glamour of a metropolis. There aren’t many skyscrapers, it’s
built on a nonsensical grid system, and honestly it just didn’t seem that
impressive. The
traffic and pollution are horrible. To anyone planning a visit, I highly recommend wearing sunglasses and having a bandana or something
to cover your face with while riding in a tuk-tuk. The dust and filth in the air, stirred up from the dirty
streets, is like nothing I have experienced (not even in Vietnam or Thailand).
With
that said, Phnom Penh is an amazing place and I did enjoy the time that I spent
there. It’s located where the
Tongle Sap meets the Mekong River and every morning from sunrise til 8 am, you
can see hundreds of people on the riverfront beginning their days with aerobics
and yoga. There are hotels,
guesthouses, and hostels all over the city for an array of prices. While I was there, the people seemed to
be a little standoffish at first (city-like, I guess), but were really just as
nice and friendly as everyone in Siem Reap if you talked to them for a bit.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to
spend much time in Phnom Penh. The
plan was to stay in Siem Reap for a few more days. Of course, I did what I always do and waited until the
last minute to try and change my flight.
What I didn't know is that it's Air Asia policy that, even with the
travel insurance I had, there's a minimum of 48 hours notice needed to change flights (mine was scheduled to leave the next day). SOOO, without having much choice, Ry-dude and I got on a bus a few hours
later and headed 5 ½ hours away, back to Phnom Penh. This gave me from 6 am to 4 pm (on the day of my
departure) to see and do everything in the city that I wanted to.
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| Skulls uncovered after excavations at the Killing Fields |
Ryan
and I hired a tuk-tuk for the day ($12 USD) and the driver took us to the
Killing Fields, S-21 (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum), and lastly the shooting range. “The
Killing Fields” are about 35 minutes outside of town. For a $2 entrance fee you’re allowed in and can see where
the Khmer Rouge mercilessly massacred so many Cambodian people. If you're not familiar with the history of the Khmer Rouge and what happened in Cambodia in the 1970's, you can school yourself here. Once inside, there was a free audio tour that allowed us to move at our own pace between marked sites (including mass graves, execution
areas, and a huge collection of human skulls), all of which were shocking. I even found a human tooth in the dirt,
recently washed up to the surface by rain. After the hour-long tour we bought some incense for the
shrine and monument, and then checked out the museum near the exit. As hard as it is to stomach, I am
really glad I got to see this. I
learned a lot and have so much respect for what the Cambodian people have had
to overcome.
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| Mass graves, like this one where 450 victims were buried, are all over the Killing Fields |
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, better known as S-21, was not much easier to see. It’s a
high school-turned-torture prison camp.
This is where the Khmer Rouge would torture people. It causes the same distress as the
Killing Fields, and after 20 minutes, we decided to leave.
*In this picture (to the left of the Ginger) is a man missing one leg. Unfortunately, this is an all to common site. Still to this day, Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined areas on the planet. The Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) estimates that there are between 4 to 6 million mines in the ground. Note that the entire population of Cambodia is only 11. 5 million.*
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| "Say Hello to my little friends!" |
Our
final stop of the day was of a brighter hue. On the opposite side of town our tuk-tuk driver
dropped us off at the shooting range.
Talk about kids in a candy store; they had everything! I had only shot a gun once in my life
before, but I have to admit, the mere site of machine guns and RPG’s got me
more than a little excited.
Although we opted not to, the option was available to shoot a rocket launcher
at a live cow ($350 US). Our
budgets and morals didn’t allow for that so we opted to pay $65 each to
shoot 20 rounds out of an AK-47 and 50 rounds from a Russian machine gun with a
tripod. Rambo would’ve been
jealous. Firing these bad boys and
blowing coconuts to smithereens was a badass experience and the grand finale to
the whole Phnom Penh escapade.
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| "Yippee ki-yay motherf*er!" |
After
that, the tuk-tuk driver raced me to the airport and I hopped on my flight back
to my first love, Thailand. I had
a great time in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. Cambodia is now one of my favorite countries. My only regret is not being able to spend
more time there. The food, the
historical sites, the prices, and the people are all fantastic and I hope I get
to go back again. Maybe next time
I’ll shoot rocket the launcher.
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| Please... No smoking, no photography, and NO HAND GRENADES! |
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| Thousands of skulls, teeth, and bones are kept in a shrine at the Killing Fields to pay respect to the dead and remind people of what the Cambodians went through |
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| A tooth washed up from the rain that I found on the ground at the Killing Fields |
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| Me, about to get medieval on a coconut... |
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