They said we would be taking public transit to Phnom Penh so I envisioned six to eight hours aboard a decrepit tro-tro. Instead we traveled on an air-conditioned comfortable bus that provided us with bottled water and crackers and a number of pee breaks. It was a long trip and half-way through we crossed over the border from Vietnam into Cambodia. The transition took a bit of time but it was quite smooth and before we knew it we were on the road again.
Waiting for the lights to change in Saigon
We began to see more and more houses built on stilts. I understand this is common practice here especially in areas of rice farming where annual floods are the norm. We are travelling a highway that follows along just west of the mighty Mekong River.
Cattle graze all over. In Vietnam I don’t remember seeing cattle though we did see water buffalo. Here cattle are more common.
We arrived at the Diamond Hotel in downtown Phnom Penh around 4:30. It is clean and quite comfortable but it is an older hotel than the ones we’ve been staying in. After the air-conditioned bus, the heat seemed pretty intense. I understand Cambodia is even hotter than Vietnam.
Time for a quick settle into our rooms and we met up again for a cyclo tour around some of the main attractions of the downtown. We peddled past the Phsar Thimey or Central Market which is housed in an old French market building and on to the Wat Phnom.
This is a beautiful Buddhist temple with a large working clock laid out on the grass in front. There was a bamboo pig in front of the clock to honour Cambodian New Year that had just passed. (This is the year of the pig). Across the street from the temple is a statue of Grandmother Penh who according to legend had the temple constructed after a flood when she found a floating tree containing four statues of Buddha. The city derives its name from this woman.
On to Independence Monument which was designed as a lotus-shaped stupa. On the other side of the square is a statue of Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s first prime minister after their liberation from the French. Bun gave us a talk on some of the history of the Norodom family and then a taste of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. We will get more when we travel to the Killing Fields.
Back onto the Cyclos and off to a wonderful restaurant I will have to get the name of. Bun recommended a few dishes and I chose the Khmer Amok which was a delicious curry. We washed it down with two mugs of local draft – all for a very reasonable $5 USD.
Up early tomorrow.