Most visitors to Cambodia are already in Thailand, and just make the short trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap to visit the ruins of Angkor. Doing so, they miss out on the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. But Phnom Penh was simply phnom-enal. (I can’t resist the pun, even though the Ph is pronounced like the aspirated “p” as in “pond” and not “f” as in “phone.”) That said, Phnom Penh isn't for everyone. It carries the weight of Cambodia's history as a colonial outpost of the French, and it shows the scars of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia for several decades until the late 1990s.

Sisowath Quay

My flight was delayed and I arrived in Phnom Penh after dark. I was nonetheless immediately struck by the architecture. French colonial, Indian, traditional Khmer, modernist and other influences seem to be blended together. After arriving at my hotel, the Bougainvillier, I went out for a walk along the Sisowath Quay, the main road which runs along the Mekong River. Crowds of teenage locals hang out along the riverbanks, while tourists and expats sit at bars across the street drinking and chatting. In the street between them, motorcycles zip by. Some of them are motorcycle taxis, their drivers stopping every block or so to ask a tourist, “hello, moto?” There is a faint smell of sewer. Rats scurry about the trash in the streets, but shop fronts seem clean and well maintained.

On the curbs, poor older women sit begging, sometimes next to their children, all spawled out on the brick. The disparity of income is more acute than anything I’ve seen except maybe in Shanghai. The official currency, the riel, is used side-by-side with the dollar (4000 riels = 1 dollar), but from the tourist’s perspective, the riel is basically only used to make change for a dollar. I get the feeling that there are basically two economies operating side-by-side in Cambodia. One for the wealthy, priced in dollars, and one for everyone else, priced in riels. According to the guidebooks, a typical public employee (soldier, policeman, etc) makes $20 per month.

I feel all the more privileged because I have an especially nice hotel room here -- a large suite with a balcony overlooking Sisowath and the Mekong.

Royal Palace and National Museum

I spent the morning visiting the Royal Palace complex and the National Museum. I walked between the various major sights, which gave me a chance to explore the streets.

The Royal Palace complex is quite similar to the one in Bangkok. The National Museum houses many of the best sculptures found from among the Angkor ruins. Unfortunately photos were not allowed inside.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

I had to repeatedly stop for breaks from the heat. On the way to the museum, I stopped for lunch at Indian restaurant. I had some food leftover so I took it with me and handed them to an elderly couple begging on the street. Instead of thanking me right away, they kept frantically pointing at my hand. It took me a moment to realize what they really wanted was the large bottle of clean drinking water I was carrying. I gladly surrendered the water as well, somewhat startled at my failure to realize that finding drinking water in Cambodia might be a daily struggle.

I finally made my way to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is a former school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a concentration camp. This camp was just one of many that prisoners were brought through on the way to the killing fields. The museum itself is best described in photos.

Wat Ounalum

Exhausted after the museum, I exited the museum to find a crowd of "moto" drivers waiting. The going rate for a ride on the back of a motorcycle within Phnom Penh is about 2000 riels. After what I saw, I didn't feel like being stingy. I only gave the driver $2 (8000 riels) but it completely made his day. Before I returned to the hotel, I briefly ducked into Wat Ounalum, the Buddhist headquarters of Cambodia. It was a Buddhist holiday so the temple was full of activity. Monks scurryied in and out of temple.

I stopped to talk with a group of guys hanging out beside the temple, enjoying the holiday. I told them I had just come from Tuol Sleng and how sad it was. Even these youth seemed to understand the weight of history they carried. Two of them were studying criminal law clearly with the hope they could prevent a repeat of the past. They also seemed keen to learn more about the world outside Cambodia. They showed off their mobile phones (more advanced than those available in the US) and marveled at my thin and light Japanese camera.

The depths of poverty to which Cambodia sank during the Khmer Rouge years is all the more striking juxtaposed with the grandeur of the Khmer empire at his height.

To the Angkor page