Phnom Penh.. nataional holidays three for three

We were off on our bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh and we were expecting a fairly rigorous boarder crossing; some of the people we talked to, and the reviews on the internet hinted at corrupt boarder guards and long wait times. Our experience however, was totally painless. A little confusing at times because the ‘guide’ didn’t explain anything, but other than that smooth as can be. We even picked up a bottle of Canadian Club at the duty free shop for $6 US. We were on our way in style! We stopped at a truck-stop style restaurant just inside the Cambodian boarder that is frequented by all the busses coming / going into Vietnam. Let’s just say that we weren’t comfortable eating there at all. When we arrived, we were supposed to be picked up by the hotel but they weren’t there to meet us. We ended up getting a motorized tuk-tuk (little carriage pulled by either a motorcycle or a bicycle) by a man named Camera. He seemed like a friendly honest guy so we made arrangements for him to pick us up the next day for a tour at 08:00. On the first day while we were getting our bearings of the city, we noticed all of the preparations for the upcoming festival. The city was bursting at the seams with people and traffic, we couldn’t imagine how a few more hundred thousand people would fit in.

The closed palace... national holidays aren't that great

Bright and early we stumbled down from the room, to see our driver lounging outside in his tuk-tuk waiting for us. After a bite to eat, we were off! This was the second tuk-tuk ride we’ve had (the first was just yesterday) and we were initially quite excited for the trip. Normally we walk everywhere we go or take public transport, and have only on a few occasions used taxi’s. Dave, don’t worry I promise we’ll get on some moto’s soon! After the first half hour on the tuk-tuk, our thrill and excitement had passed. The pot-hole filled roads and the poor suspension in the tuk-tuk, work together to give your body quite the beating. We stopped at the shooting range (were told that it is much better than the one that we tried at the Cu Chi tunnels) and it would give Ewa a second chance to fire off an assault rifle, or rocket launcher or throw a grenade if she wanted. When we arrived, we were shocked at the prices. It would be $40 US for a 25 shot round with the AK-47 and prices for the other guns were similar. $50 for the grenade, and $300 for the rocket launcher. We were hoping that it would have been much, much less so we settled on the one clip on the AK-47. This time, we had proper earmuffs and ear-plugs of our own. After the first two shots Ewa had enough. Chad fired off the last of the bullets and even tried a few on Automatic!

Killing fields

After getting a feeling for what it’s like to shoot a weapon designed to kill people, we visited Choeung Ek - the killing fields, where we witnessed first hand the effects of the weapon we had just used. There is not a lot to see in the killing fields, but the gravity of the events that took place are hard to miss. When you first walk in, there is a 7 story monument to those who were killed, and each floor has glass sides that reveal the 7 stories of stacked human skulls from the victims uncovered in some of the mass graves. The rest of the site is a walk through the sites of the mass graves, a small museum and a movie room. It was really sad to see that years after WWI, WWII and countless of other wars, humanity seems to continuously repeat the same mistakes. There is no compassion for your fellow man, but instead a need for power and greed. After the killing fields we also visited the S-21 prison and museum. The prison was used as a holding spot for people ( men, women and children) who were suspected of being an enemy to the Khmer revolution. They were made to work, tortured and then when they confessed to their crimes or pleaded innocent they were brutally killed. When the prison was liberated there were few survivors and 7 corpses were found on the grounds that the revolutionists did not have time to dispose of. We were exhausted when we came back to our hotel and in the evening walked the streets that were mayhem because of the water festival. We went for dinner on one of the main streets where about 500 people were walking past us every 4 minutes, just a stream of constant people, it looked like a mass migration. The city is quite poor and there are many people here who were maimed during the revolution. Just through dinner at least 10 people came up to us trying to sell books, dvds or postcards, most were handicapped. There was one man we saw who was wheeling himself on his stomach on a board with wheels, he had no legs or arms to his elbows and was pushing himself by his elbows. It was refreshing and nice to see that very many local people and tourists gave money to him. Many people who have deformities or are handicapped can’t get work, no one will hire them. There are no government rules for fair standards, no welfare, nothing, they are forced to beg or sell goods so that they can support themselves and their families.

The foreigners zone at the Phnom Pehn water festival

The next day we were quite tired from the heat and we just walked around, to discover that most of the sights were closed because of the holiday so we just looked through the gates of some of the palaces. Seems to be the trend as this is the third capital city we’ve visited on a national holiday, and again the main sights are closed off. With all of the people, the city was packed with more vendors, random people and garbage than we have seen anywhere yet. As we were walking back to our hotel we walked along the main street which is right next to the Mekong River where the boat races were. A lady tried to sell us water but we didn’t want any and were quite tired of people coming up to us and asking if we wanted water, frog, meat, coca cola, and so on and so on. She then said ok why you not go see races? We looked at the huge crowds gathered along the river and it seemed frightening being stuck in 500 people deep shoulder to shoulder. We said there’s no room. And she pointed us to a very empty section, right near the banks of the river, with comfy chairs and a covered seat section, we automatically thought we had to pay for it and we weren’t about to do that. So we said no thanks, and she said : Free Free. We hesitated, looked at all the guards, the metal detector and wondered…really? So we walked through and it turns out it was a section especially for Tourist. ??? It was weird, just 15 meters from us were locals packed like sardines in a can trying to see the races and here is a free section for tourists all sectioned off, it was almost like segregation, we felt guilty for being there. Apparently the government likes to have a lot of foreigners displayed on TV during big national events, so they work as hard as they can to make it easy for foreigners. Our last day in the city was a monsoon day. It was raining torrentially, non-stop through the day, so we took the day to relax, and to plan ahead for some of the rest of our trip. The next morning we were off to Siem Reap on the bus.

boat races at the water festival

Phnom Penh.. nataional holidays three for three

Phnom Penh, Cambodia