Action Packed Birthday in the City
Trip Start
Dec 10, 2007
1
27
Trip End
Nov 27, 2008
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
This capital city is quite a bit more lively than Laos's capital city. Gold gilded temples are splashed across the panoramic view of the city. Every Friday, the park with the fountain hosts hundreds of Khmer people enjoying picnics and games. At dusk, the fountain does a musical light show that stops traffic. We stayed at Okay Guesthouse and I loved the neighborhood. I found the alternative lake-area guesthouses to be a bit seedier.
As we walk through the Royal Palace, it's difficult to believe that only 29 years ago (1975 - 1979), this entire city was a ghost town. The Khmer Rouge (KR) forced everyone out of the city. If you were not killed because your education or beliefs threatened the KR, then you were forced to walk across the entire country to farm and starve. This was the Agrarian Utopia the KR dreamed of. Meanwhile, Americans are introduced to Apple Computers and Fleetwood Mac releases "Rumours." These are modern times. While much of the world is moving toward technology and higher standards of life, the Cambodians are suffering a surreal genocide. After Vietnam dislodged the KR, the Khmer people moved back to the city and tried to rebuild their lives and faith in the goodness of humanity. Now, when you witness the friendliness and resourcefulness of the Khmers, it's hard to remember the horrors they have survived.
We visited a prison (Tuol Sleng / S-21) to see for ourselves a relic of how brutal humans can be. This old high school was transformed into a prison camp where all of the 12,000 prisoners were killed. Today, in 2009, trials are only beginning to prosecute some of the people responsible for this "cultural cleansing" genocide. When you visit this educational museum, you feel transported from the modern bustling city to a time when Phnom Penh was a completely different place in history.
My Birthday
On the day of my birthday, we tried to be responsible tourists and give some rice to an orphanage. Unfortunately, we were swindled by our tuk-tuk driver who sold us the rice for an unfair price. Lovely as I found the Khmer people, tuk-tuk drivers are generally untrustworthy thieves no matter what country you're in! Advice: don't trust any tuktuk driver when money is involved. However, it was nice to meet the kids at the orphanage and practice some English with them. It was worthwhile.
Then we went to a refreshing water-park. We had a good time playing on the slides with the only 6 kids who were there. It felt a bit abandoned, but still a good way to spend a hot birthday afternoon. When I realized that the lap pool was cloudy and tasted like vinegar, we bid the park a fond, slightly disgusted, farewell.
The evening ended with some wonderful pizza, witnessing a motorbike accident and some misinformed person attempting faulty CPR, and some dancing at a surprisingly nice club called Heart of Darkness.
