Phnom Penh

November 12 started with the sun rising over the Mekong and us on our bikes heading for a long hot day to Phnom Penh...

...and the scenes of people already on the water under that beautiful soft light of the first hour of the day...

For the first time we saw some horse-drawn carts... this horse looked better groomed than a mere beast of burden as it was being washed in water along the side of the highway.

Usually, it's oxen pulling the carts and ploughs, but here a school kid is simply riding one of three that his mother is leading home.

Every day we pass several Buddhist temples, but this one was unusual in having a pair of langoustine as gate guards rather than the usual tigers or elephants.

Finally into Phnom Penh. Thanks to a strong recommendation from Jacques and Myriam Guillon, we enjoyed superb French cuisine at the Bougainvillier Hotel on the bank of the Mekong near the centre of town. If we were to come back to Phnom Penh, we'd almost certainly dine there again. 

Today, 13 November, as a rest day, was a chance to play tourist, starting at the grim Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum on the site of Security Office 21 of "Democratic Kampuchea". S.21 previously housed a high school and an elementary school. Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime detained and tortured an estimated 20,000 men women and children here because they were seen to be a threat to the regime or related to someone who was. Only a handful came out alive. After being tortured into 'confessing' to something, they were taken to the killing fields, which we did not visit, and executed by a blow to the back of the skull.

the high school with barbed wire enclosure

The victims were all photographed on arrival at S.21.
Hundreds of the photos are on display - the faces
indicate that they know what their fate will be. 

If Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are a blot on the history of Cambodia, the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda show a different side... 


palace grounds

Silver Pagoda

...and then a couple of glimpses into everyday things here... electrical distribution system - this is on a main street in a well-heeled part of town...

Getting around town here is frequently by tuk-tuk, motorcycle-drawn 'taxi' for up to four people - indeed this is how we travelled around town. Note the ingenious fuel system on this one, the plastic can on the fram attached beside the rear wheel behind the driver, the plastic hose coming out of the cap, under the driver's leg, and somehow feeding fuel to the engine.