Phnom Penh – the sad part

10 02 2010

Today we started the day early and went to the biggest market in town – Psar Tuol Tom Pong or The Russian Market.  This is a local market for local people, selling things that the local people need like food and groceries, scooter parts, stationary, baby clothes and the like and then they throw in some tourist stalls with silk, statues, watches and jewelry.

We came equipped with a map and saw that they had food in the middle of the market.  We hadn’t had any breakfast so we went straight for the food section thinking that this would be a nice, cozy food court – something that reminded of a western mall.  Of course we were dead wrong.  The food section contained butchers with whole chickens, chopped down pork and whole fish.  Since we were early the sellers were still chopping away and cleaning their products so you had to watch out not to get covered in guts and blood – it reminded me a bit of my days at the Húsavík slaughterhouse.

After some search we found where they were offering cooked food and grabbed delicious waffles for breakfast.  We walked through the maze of stalls for a couple of hours but didn’t see anything that we fancied carrying in our bags for the next month.  We therefore headed towards the horrific Tuol Sleng or S-21 prison turned into a genocide museum.

Tuol Sleng was a high school until the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, turned it into the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21).  The majority of the victims buried in The Killing Fields were prisoners at Tuol Sleng.  After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 it was made into a genocide museum, displaying the horrific things that went on during the Khmer Rouge regime.  The museum stands as a constant reminder of the past in the hope that those things can never happen again.

The museum hasn’t been changed much since it served as a torture prison and we were able to walk around the whole site.  The prison cells still had the original beds, chains and even blood stains on the floors and ceilings.  The torture instrument were still present and signs and pictures showed how they were used.  This museum leaves no one untouched and seeing the pictures of the victims made it all so real – I don’t think any other place I’ve been to has given me such negative vibes as S-21.  It is impossible to understand how and why such things can happen – and not that long ago.

We had decided to stay in Phnom Penh until we can enter Vietnam on the 13th of February but changed our minds and are now going to Sihanoukville in the morning where we will have beaches and relaxation again.  We are also trying to set up our route so that the Chinese new year on the 14th won’t hinder us too much.


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Phnom Penh – the fancier part

10 02 2010

Phnom Penh is leaving us exhausted.  It is dirty, it is loud, the traffic is chaotic and we are constantly being asked if we need a tuktuk and if not – do you need one tomorrow, Sir?  – why not? – how about The Killing Fields, Lady – I give you good price? 

While we were very impressed by how the Thais would allow us to look at the items they were selling and we had the feeling that we were buying stuff rather than being sold stuff, the Cambodians are constantly trying to sell us things so we take care not to stop too long looking at things unless we are serous about buying.  If we linger too long, they start pulling out all sorts so stuff we had no interest in and try to get us to buy something …anything.

Yesterday we went to see the National Museum, next to the Royal Palace.  It contained mostly artifacts from the Angkorian era taken from around Siem Reap but also a few pre-Angkorian artifacts as well as later stuff.  The museum it self is in a beautiful building that by it self is worth the visit.  The museum was kind of small and took maybe a couple of hours to see everything, which is quite surprising considering the long and eventful history Cambodia has but I guess the ministry of culture does not have too much funds – the money is needed elsewhere.

After the National Museum we headed across the street to see the Royal Palace.  Admission was a whopping $6 per person – we were hesitant but went in anyway (yes, we’ve gotten so cheap by now :).  There were only two buildings that were available to us, the coronation room and The Silver Pagoda.  The Silver Pagoda is famous for the 500 kg of silver that decorate the floor of the temple and the two Buddha statues, first a 90 kg solid gold man-sized statue decorated with over 2,000 diamonds and a smaller a small 17th century baccarat crystal Buddha.  The buildings were nice but we felt that there was something lacking – it seemed like they were trying to make the numbers rather then creating a balanced and beautiful space.  Unfortunately photography was not allowed in those two buildings. 

We were allowed to take photos in the shrine or temple that amused and intrigued me the most.  In that temple a sacred cow was worshipped.  We have all read about the Hindus considering cows (like all other life forms) to be sacred but to see a cow on the altar is something different.

The Khmer cuisine hasn’t kept the promise it made on our first night in Siem Reap.  I think that was our best meal in Cambodia so far.  They have a lot of noodle and rice dishes but the curries are not as hot as in Thailand and there is some ingredient they use that we are not loving so we are looking forward to trying something new in Vietnam.  We can even admit that we have had pizza once and a chicken burger once, not bad though for over three weeks of travelling?

I’ll tell you about our day today, when we went to the biggest market in town and the gruesome S-21 prison, in my next post.


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New “Hostels and Guesthouses” page

9 02 2010

I just created a Hostels and Guest houses page with reviews of all the places we have stayed in.  The idea was to help people that are travelling to these same places and want to know what places to stay away from and what places to seek out.  You can find the page on the right hand side of the on the blog.

Tomorrow I hope to have an update on Phnom Penh.  We explored the Royal Palace today and the National Museum and tomorrow we are going for the biggest market in town and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. 


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New “What to pack?” page

8 02 2010

Hi all

I just added a new page for people that want to go on a trip like our’s and are wondering what to pack for the trip.  The link can be found on the right hand side of the blog or here below.

What to pack?


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The magnificent Angkor

7 02 2010

As I said in the last post we have been staying in Siem Reap and going off to explore the Angkor temples for the last three days.  The temples that the Khmers have build are amazing.  The temples around Siem Reap are well over 100 in number and were build circa from the year 800 to late twelfth century – at the same time as Iceland was getting fully settled.

At the height of the Khmer empire there were about one million people living in the city.  To provide some context – London had some 50 thousand inhabitants at the time.  According the the Khmer people, only the gods were worthy of stone buildings so both the public and the royal court lived in wooden houses that are all long gone and only the temples remain.

The majority of the temples were build as Hindu temples but some of them were build as Buddhist temples and others were converted into Buddhist temples later on.  It seems like the kings back in the day weren’t really sure what to believe and to the people it didn’t seem to matter too much either, maybe there isn’t so much difference between Hinduism and Buddhism – after all Buddha was born, lived and died a Hindu – if I have my religions correct.

We started our three day tour by hiring a tuktuk to take us to some of the minor temples, we wanted to start small and build momentum.  A lot of the smaller temples were just wonderful.  Their condition varied greatly in terms of condition but that was a part of the charm.  We had great access to the temples and there were not a lot of people around, which is always a plus.  The weather was very hot and the tuktuk drive between the temples was refreshing and provided a cooling breeze.

The next day we decided to rent bikes and bike to some of the temples closer to Siem Reap.  Having the bikes gave us great freedom and we could do everything at our speed.  We spent a long time exploring the big big temple with all the big faces (See previous picture) and others around it.
 

On our way back we ran into a group of monkeys that live in the surrounding forest.  They seemed quite used to people coming with food and weren’t afraid of us at all.  One was even cheeky enough to jump up to the basket on my bike and steal my water bottle – he wasn’t satisfied with just bananas that one.

For the third day we had saved the main thing – Angkor Wat and since this was our last destination we decided to take a tuktuk before dawn and watch the sun rise above Angkor Wat – a heavenly sight according to the brochures.  On the way we had a minor mishap when the tuktuk was out of fuel in the middle of the jungle and we had to walk the last 15 minutes in the dark.  We made it before dawn, got a good seat and waited.  The dawn and sunrise was a bit of a disappointment and definitely overhyped.  Angkor Wat turned out to be quite impressive, not quite the crown jewel but nice.  Maybe we had had too many temples in the last days – at least we feel quite satisfied in that regard but the Angkor area is a fantastic spectacle and definitely one of the more interesting wonders of the world.

During the evenings here, we have been going to the night market.  At the night market people are selling all kinds of silk products: scarves, veils, pasminas, table cloths, bed covers and clothes.  They are also selling paintings of the temples, statues, jewelry and a handful of other stuff.  Fish massage seems to be quite hot here as well.  We had seen that before in Bangkok but here it is everywhere.  For a fish massage you sit by a pool and put your feet into the pool and the fish come and nibble at your feet.  They seem to be eating the dead skin cells and this is supposed to be very relaxing and your foot comes out smooth and shiny.

We heard from a group of people from Húsavík that are in Siem Reap just now.  We have been trying to get a hold of them without much luck but hopefully we’ll bump into each other tomorrow – it’s a small world, haah!

Next is one day of chilling in Siem Reap and then we will go by bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital before crossing over to Vietnam.  If there is anything you would like to know, see some pictures off or want me to write about, just go to the blog and post a comment.


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Angkor area

5 02 2010

We bought a three day pass to the Angkor area as there are over 100 temples to look at in the area.  We have been busy all day from early morning to “late” in the evening for two days now and have been loving every minute of it.

We are still as much in love with the Cambodians as on the first day.  The people are just wonderful and extremely happy and they are easy to communicate with since almost all of them speak very good English.  According to where we have traveled, both here and in the past, there seems to be a correlation between how little money people have and how happy they seem.

For tomorrow morning we have saved the crown jewel – Angkor Wat at dawn.  Therefore I’m going to leave this post short and I promise to give a full update with a lot of pictures next time we have a long bus ride :)

There are striking news from ABT were we found the Backgammon board again.  We had kind of agreed to cancel the backgammon series since Elínborg only just learned the game and thought that she didn’t stand a chance, even though she won the first game (with my help).  So we agreed and kind of assumed that I would win the next game and then we could retire the backgammon board.  So we stared playing and Elínborg won not once but twice so she is leading the backgammon part by three victories to null.  Quite impressive ;)

I just updated the map on the right so check that out!
Link to the blog for the Facebook readers


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