12. Cambodia..... Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is the chaotic busy capital of Cambodia siting astride the Mekong. The prom....

Sunset behind the Royal Palace

And traffic in front of it!

There we're lots of boats on the Mekong. All the ones going upriver were really low in the water, full of sand being transported upstream. The boat in the centre is actually the same as the one on the right... Don't think they've heard of the Plimsoll Line here!

There were lots of people selling songbirds from cages.... I thought the birds may have been sold to be eaten, but no. Apparently people buy them and release them for good fortune. The birds then return to the seller. Other than those that were dead in the bottom of the cages....

I visited the local market, the interior of which is a beautiful Art Deco dome. This was the jewellery section where I had been told, by the bank, was the place to go to change my remaining Pounds Sterling! I wanted US Dollars, which is pretty much the ubiquitous currency here. They only seem to use the Cambodian Riel for small change less than a dollar. The money changers in the market give a better rate than the banks, and you can also haggle to get the best rate! That was a new experience! She checked all my notes and I checked all of hers using her infrared machine to show the watermarks, and we did the deal.... And they have all worked! Hurray! 

That called for a coffee at The Strand, the Raffles hotel in PP... The beautiful Elephant Bar was shut but I did take a photo.... A Singapore Sling here was US$11..... A snip!

 

I sat in the Writers Bar and relaxed before my next onslaught in PP....

I then visited S21 and the Killing Fields, the two key sites to see in Phnom Penh. S21 or Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, used to be a school and was taken over by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 when they came to power. They transformed it into their main prison for interrogation and torture before most inmates were sent to the Killing Fields. I didn't take any photos out of respect not only for the horrors of man's inhumanity to man, but to mostly fellow Cambodians, although there were a few foreigners as well. Their rule lasted until 1979 when the Vietnamese invaded and overthrew them, and since then, slowly, Cambodia has returned to a democratic country. Most of what happened was unknown to the rest of the world at the time..... 

I did take a photo of my tuk tuk driver filling up at a petrol station tho! From Fanta bottles....

That day out called for a drink at the FCC.... The Foreign Correspondents Club overlooking the Mekong, where a met 3 lovely people living in London and we chatted and watched the sun go down. Then we all went to the Night Market to eat.... USD1.5 for some wonderful food! We sat on the rush mats spread in the centre of the stalls, and yes, we were all fine the next day! 

They were going on the bus, but I splashed out to go on the boat, US$35 as opposed to $6 on the bus! so we arrange to meet in SR the next evening.

The 6 hour boat journey was wonderful! Along the Tonle Sap River first of all past the houses on the riverbank. 

 We crossed the lake, which is huge and you can only just see land on the far horizon. Then past the floating villages and into the dock for Siem Reap, about 10kms out of town. 

Apparently a lot of the people living here are Vietnamese.