Phnom Penh

Another beautiful sunrise greets us this morning. We stand on our balcony and watch the sun rise and hear the Buddhist monks chanting carry down the Mekong.

Although up guess what didn't make Tai Chi.

We are taken to the Killing fields. It is eerie and a quiet place, we can see the clothes of the victims still in the ground, poking through the earth in the mass graves. Most have been completely excavated but some remain untouched. I am not going to put any details in here, however it is so recent and you feel it.
Next we travel to S21 which is the prison and torture place before being killed a buried in mass graves. The torture inflicted was absolutely barbaric. There is a memorial and lots of pictures of the people that were held there and you can walk around the minute cells where they were held. We don’t stay long.

It is an absolute scorcher today and after a very fine lunch we head off to the Kings Palace and Silver Pagoda. It is beautiful and opulent. It is quite sickening when there is so much poverty outside of the golden palace gates.
The Cambodian people are so lovely, smiling happy and beautiful people. Again it is clear to us that the Buddhist teaching is a good way of life.
We have cyclos to take us back to the boat. There is much discussion as to which way we should go. There is one person per cyclo and you sit in front of the poor cyclist. My peddler wants to go one way but other shout him down. Off we go at a rate of knots 3 of us in the front vie for pole position. There get dangerously close to each other and other traffic in the crowded streets. We then stop, nowhere near the river. Hmm much more whaaa choyyy acchhh etch and off we go again, finally find the boat. Much bowing and tipping the poor men who are a bit hot now.
After a beer to cool us down we head off for the market. I purchase 2 pairs of short for 5$
Mr F buys some elephant trousers, wonder if he will ever use them. They are selling Levi and Calvin Klein shorts for peanuts.
Dinner last night was a bbq on the sun deck. It is so lovely to sit outside and eat in the evening. We are treated to some Cambodian Apsara dancing. Ian and I groan as we saw this is Siem Reap and it was poor and ear splitingly screechy. However this was a real professional performance, fabulous dancing, precision and beauty. Also some humour with the Monkey and the Buddha dance.

 

These ARAMARK workwear trousers were for sale in the night market in Phnom Penh along side Calvin Klein have we been missing something all these years.