September 18: Phnom Penh

We arrived at our hotel last night at around 11:00. After a thorough hounding by our hotel shuttle driver to 1) use his service to travel to Siem Riep on Monday even though we already made travel plans, 2) stay at this hotel’s sister property in Siem Riep even though we already made hotel reservations somewhere else, 3) accompany him on a tour of Phnom Penh even though we already made plans to visit sites within walking distance, and 4) allow him to take us to a shooting range where we would be able to shoot an AK-47, we finally got into real beds and got a good night’s sleep.

By 8 this morning—yes, that’s 8 a.m. for those of you who think you know Tony—we were off on our walking tour. Just steps out the door, we learned what would become the refrain of the entire day: “Hello, sir. You want tuk-tuk?” A tuk-tuk is a four-person carriage pulled by a motorcycle. Along with mopeds, scooters, bicycles, and tuk-tuk-less motorcycles, they fill the city streets, and their drivers are very aggressive about picking up fares. We finally had to stop being polite when we heard that dreaded, butchered English and just ignore them after delivering a curt “No. Thank you.”

We had intended to visit the royal palace first, but it was closed for the morning while the king welcomed dignitaries from Thailand. Instead, we visited the national gallery, which is not terribly large but is filled with Khmer sculpture and relics. (I would find out later that many of the heads we would see had been removed from the ruins at Angkor in order to protect them; some of the heads that we would see at Angkor were very good replicas.) Some photos from the museum are below. We were forbidden from taking photos inside the actual museum rooms, but we were allowed to photograph freely in the central courtyard.

I said earlier that we could photograph “freely” in the courtyard. It turned out that that was not entirely true, though I didn’t know it when I shot the above photo. Those tags you see on the column just beyond the lion head . . .it says, “Do not photograph these items.” Oops. Sorry about that.

After the national gallery, we visited the royal palace and the Silver Pagoda, so named because the entire floor is tiled with sterling silver tiles richly engraved. Only a portion of the pagoda floor is visible because silver is such a soft metal that the constant tourist traffic would destroy it fairly quickly. That roughly 8 x 12 foot section, though, was lovely. I can only imaging how spectacular the floor is when they remove the rugs. The pagoda also includes a beautiful baccarat crystal Buddha that looks like carved jade and another covered with nearly 10,000 diamonds.

On our way there, we avoided the tuk-tuk drivers by walking on a nontourist street.

About half of the palace grounds is open to the public, but even that half is pretty extensive. We spent several hours visiting various stupas, temples, shrines, audience halls, and other buildings whose use we could not divine. We couldn’t take photos in any buildings, but here are some photos taken on the grounds.

Our third excursion today was a visit to the night market, which consists of around a hundred outdoor vendors. At the market, people sell all kinds of items, but mostly they sell women’s clothing. Tony and Jan both bought a couple items, but not a lot really caught my eye until I spotted a collarless shirt for myself and t-shirt that I thought Mark would like. It took forever to find the right sizes. Apparently, “M” in the United States translates to “XXL” in Cambodia (they are a small people).

Time for bed. Siem Riep tomorrow.