Day 11 18th November Sight Seeing in Phnom Penh 0Km

Day 11 18th November Sight Seeing in Phnom Penh 0Km


After yesterday's challenging ride into Phnom Penh, today was a non-cycling rest day. One option was a 25Km cycle out of town, but we would have had to navigate there and back ourselves as Tonyet was scheduled for a rest day and Chris had to go to his office to get some work done.

The hotel was quite reasonable and I slept well, all the cycling certainly helps when shifting timezones. We had our first rainy morning, which would help to keep the dust down. When I went for Breakfast there were many travellers from different parts of the globe sampling the buffet breakfast. I settled for bread and Jam, juice and coffee - I am not a great fan of fried food kept warm over burners. I also took my morning Malarone tablet (anti-malaria medication).

After a brief walk out of the hotel I decided to pop back in to get my cycle jacket, although it was fluorescent yellow it would keep the rain out. Almost as soon as you leave the front door of the hotel several Tuk-Tuk drivers tout for business. Without paying too much attention I followed one to discover that in fact he was offering a Moto ride (small motorbike). Even with my cycle jacket I decided it was raining too hard and would be much better sitting in a Tuk-Tuk with a roof. The advice was that instead of taking a different Tuk-Tuk from place to place it would be cheaper to hire one for a period of time. It would reduce the risk of getting an unreliable Tuk-Tuk driver. After a brief negotiation we agreed a price for the morning. For lunch we had planned to visit one of the charities to get an update on their situation so I needed to return to the hotel at midday.

The traffic did not seem as busy as the previous day, but I did find the Tuk-Tuk ride a little more frightening than cycling. I did not have any control and the speed of the Tuk-Tuk seemed very slow especially when it pulled out in front of large trucks. In fact the traffic seemed much more orderly I tried to get a video of cyclists/motorbikes going the wrong way up the road. However I had become so used to the sight that I stopped noticing them and find myself reacting too late. Here is the video I did take, for those of you with higher bandwith connections - at the moment I cannot see it.

As we wound our way through the streets, the driver seemed right at home with the traffic, not in the least concerned as the trucks and cars beeped their way around us. Here are two monks in orange robes on their way through the streets.

After what seemed like miles (or kilometres) we arrived at my first destination - The National Museum, it was a magnificent building set in front of an open square. Before leaving my Tuk-Tuk driver I took a picture to remind myself what he and the Tuk-Tuk looked like. The rain seemed even heavier so I dashed over to the Entrance. (I had not bothered putting on my cycle jacket the Tuk-Tuks roof was more than adequate.) It cost $3, it seems that the Cambodian currency (Riels) and the US currency ($) co-exist, it was certainly easier for me to think in dollars even with the fall of the value of the pound (£) to the dollar.

The building was large and airy with very green vegetation around and in in the central courtyard. Apparently it was built between 1917 and 1920 by the French Colonists in a Khmer style. It has the world's largest collection of Khmer art. It was interesting to see sculptures pre-dating the Angkorean era.

I took a few pictures before I realised that there was signs forbidding picture taking. It seems that there is tolerance in Phnom Penh for tourists. Before getting back into my Tuk-Tuk I walked around the open square - the sudden rainfall had caused a bit of flooding, and a truck down the road was trying to unblock the rubbish from the drains.

Although the Cambodians have their own script you do see roman script used as well. This is an interesting name for a clothes shop.

Here was my driver for the morning. My next destination was Tuol Sleng - a Genocide Museum, which had been used during by the Khmer Rouge to detain individuals accused of opposing their regime. Chris had marked the museum on the map and I had expected it to be much closer to the National Museum that it turned out to be. At one point I began to wonder exactly where the driver was taking me, until we pulled up in front of the Museum.

The buildings were formerly a school and had been take over by the Khmer Rouge to be used as a prison. At the time its purpose was secret and it was referred to as Security Office 21 (S-21). It covers an area of 600x400m and when in use was enclosed by two folds of corrugated iron and dense electrified barbed wire. Various of the buildings were used for Administration, interrogation and torture.

The guards were composed of male and female children, aged between 10 and 15, deliberately trained to be exceptionally cruel and disrespectful to the prisoners and their elders. The torturers were older, in their 20s. Guards who broke the rules where themselves imprisoned. Before the prisoners were placed in their cells they were photographed and detailed biographies were taken and recorded. Some prisoners were shackled in separate cells. Others were kept in groups in larger cells. One can't help feel a terrible and moving sense of the appalling history - many of the cells are as they were when the prison was in operation. (It was established in 1976). Prisoners were stripped to their underwear and shackled to these bedframes and interrogated and tortured.

It is a sombre place, visitors walk around struggling to comprehend the brutality that took place. The cells are eerily silent, pictures of some of the inmates dead bodies, still shackled to the bedframes can be seen on the walls of the cell.

The rules were very strict and designed to de-humanise the inmates enforcing the total control that the jailers had.

As sometimes happens when awful tragedies take place, the Khmer Rouge also had an obsession with documenting the inmates. Every inmate was photographed, in a special chair with a mechanism to ensure that the head was at the correct height. Boards of these photographs of men, women and children can be found in the larger cells. Occasionally one person's face will show an attempt a smile in defiance, most look at the camera with an uncomprehending stare.

In the courtyard are some gallows where the young guards were taught to torture prisoners, by hanging them upside down and beating them, they would lower them into dirty water to revive them so the beatings could continue.

One of the things that I find about Cambodians is that the they are exceptionally open, appear very trusting and we were always followed by cheerful and excited greetings wherever we want. Perhaps it was this very trusting nature that allowed the Khmer Rouge Regime to inflict such atrocities on the people of Cambodia. It is estimated that around 17,000 people were killed at Tuol Sleng, and according to Wikipedia 1.5million people of a population of 7.5million were murdered during the KR years. Although I was aware of the atrocity I was unprepared for both the cruelty and the scale. I can only say that it is a tribute to the Cambodians I met that they are able to talk about those terrible times and also that they are able to move on with their lives.

The existence of the Genocide Museum is an important reminder of how awful man's inhumanity to man can be. It is a very moving and sombre memorial, after my visit I found myself feeling unable to comprehend the terror that must have been felt and I found it difficult to come to terms with such inhumanity.


After visiting the Genocide Museum we headed for the hustle and bustle of the Russian Market. I needed to be part of normal society again and wanted to stop thinking about the evil I had seen.

After a short journey around Phnom Penh we arrived at a very busy market, I was not really sure just how large it was. My Tuk-Tuk driver parked on one side and I wandered in. It seemed huge, the paths between the stalls varied in size, some narrowing down quite significantly. At times the paths were up and down kerbs. Inside a mass of people moved around looking for bargains. The lighting was pretty dim and the stalls seemed to be grouped together in their specialities. In one area meat could be seen hanging from stalls, not as identifiable as it is in an English butcher's shop. Also to my eyes it did not look as if the most up to date hygiene practices were being followed either. In England butchers carefully prepare meat, separating specific cuts of meat, in the market they just appeared to randomly chop the meat into chunks of bone and meat. I did recognise the sausages hanging up though.

In another part of the market the speciality seemed to be based around textiles, here is a pile of fabrics waiting for customers to choose them. I used a flash gun to take the picture, in the gloom it was difficult to see just how colourful they were. Nearby were a bunch of people working on sewing machines. What I noticed particularly was how cheerful they chattered as they worked away in the gloom.

As you travel around the streets there are groups of shops making paintings, it seems they do it on an industrial scale (which is why I call it making paintings). As you might expect, there were stalls selling Cd/films, shoes, t-shirts, money changers and I am sure many other things. Elsewhere statues were being produced, here in the market there were stalls with ranks and ranks of the smaller statues, I presume they were aimed at tourists, do they really have a market as large as it would appear from all the work going in to making them?

As I stumbled out of the gloom I started looking for my Tuk-Tuk driver, he spotted me before I saw him though. Since he wasn't going to get paid until the end of the hire period he did have a vested interest in making sure he kept an eye on me I suppose. Before heading back to the hotel I wanted to take a picture of the Imperial Palace. As luck would have it my driver stopped on the other side of the busy road to the Palace. As I started to prepare myself to cross the road my driver, perhaps worried about his fare, grabbed my elbow and carefully and swiftly propelled me across the road and I had thought I was long past being shown how to cross roads.

Here is the picture, it was worth crossing the road, as I approached the entrance there were two armed soldiers guarding it, I pointed at my camera and looked at one of the guards, I did not want to be perceived as a threat, with an almost imperceptible nod he let me walk up to the gate to take my pictures.

I then headed back to the hotel in order to meet with Jim, Mary and Channa (from Symbiosis Travel). I paid my driver and thanked him for his morning's work and we all set off in the Tuk-Tuk that Jim and Mary had hired for their day. Our destination was a restaurant run by a charity called Friends international Cambodia. The goal of the charity was to work with Street Children to develop creative projects to support the children to become independent and productive within society. The restaurant was used to help train street children, by teaching them to cook and to work as waiters/waitresses.

The food was a fusion based around Cambodian food with international influences. It was absolutely delicious. The menu suggested it was a Tapas style and recommended 2-3 dishes per person. I was feeling hungry, all that cycling perhaps, so I ordered three dishes. the first dish was a mango/lime/crispy noodle salad - and a mountain on a plate arrived. At this point I realised that my eyes were bigger than my belly, the other two dishes turned up, prawn wontons and sweet potato chips, but since we are on a challenge I managed to rise to this challenge and eat the lot. Afterwards we met with one of the staff of the charity. He explained the charities philosophy, which revolved around breaking the cycle in which the street children find themselves rather than to perpetuate it.

They do not support giving the children money when begging, the money is often either spent on drugs or taken from the child by an older person, with the cycle repeating each day. Mary saw one child hit by her "mother" when she returned from begging from foreigners with no money. As we discussed the problem with him a stark example of the problems faced in Cambodia was played out in front of us. A girl turned up at the centre carrying a boy who looked to have genetic problems, apparently he was unable to walk and had other issues and the "family" was no longer able to look after him. They were there to ask the charity to take on the responsibility, it was clear that this was not a decision that they they had taken lightly, but there is no free health service, nor social support system, if they don't earn money then they don't eat. So with a child who needs full time support life can be impossible.

It was clear that this happens on a regular basis, there was no judgement of the girl, they took her to a room and recorded the circumstances, but that is what the charity does; get children of the street.
We also visited a craft shop where all the products were made by the children being trained by the charity.

Back at the hotel I enquired about the Internet capability, it turned out not to apply to all rooms, they did have a "Business Centre" a locked room with several PCs and 3 internet connections. The door was locked and admission was only allowed after signing a chit at the Front Desk. At least I was able to get another Blog Entry finished. The bandwith was a bit slow and made downloading pictures tedious.

Tomorrow we get back to the business of cycling, this will involve cycling a distance of around 145Km according to the Itinerary and we will be crossing the Border into Vietnam so we planned a 6am start and had asked the hotel to prepare a packed breakfast.