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After that - I felt so sick that I just wanted to rest back at the hotel and out of the heat, since nothing was open to visit anyways. We headed back to the hotel and hung out for a few hours. We rode back via our waiting tuk-tuk. It's amazing anyone survives the roads here, with traffic in all directions at all times. I can fairly say that they have the "most diverse" traffic regulations than anywhere else we have visited. Because of this, we have come up with the following:
1) If you don't like the traffic you're in, feel free to join the oncoming traffic's lane, and just beep to let them know you're interested in using it. After a good rest, at 2:30pm - we headed back to the Palace. We had asked our hotel's front desk people about what we were wearing (shorts) - and they said it was ok. Unfortunately, when we got there, we found out that wasn't exactly correct. You need shorts down past your knees. We just decided to skip on the palace - it was very similar looking and based off of the Grand Palace we had seen in Bangkok. Instead, we headed to the Phnom Penh museum, which had beautiful Khmer sculptures, both very large and small, from the 5th - 15th centuries. We closed the museum at 5pm, and headed back along the road. Both in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, we have seen many kids selling books, such as Lonely Planet Cambodia/Vietnam/South East Asia, and other tourist books. They sell for $2-$4 and are obviously copies. While walking, we came upon an old fashioned printing press, binding machine, and watched as they were making these books in plain sight. There's obviously no concern for copyright infringement/prosecution (not sure of what the legal books say here either).
We grabbed dinner at the Gold Fish River restaurant which was on stilts over the Tonle Sap river. We had Khmer food, a lemongrass with chili chicken dish and noodles and veggies. The chicken was not so good, but the rest was great and we enjoyed our last Cambodian dinner. Day 112 - Phnom Penh < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 114 - Wrapping up Cambodia © 2007 Blue Ocean Studios, LTD. All rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Services | About | Contact Prints | Return Policy | View Cart World Travel Galleries | World Travel Blog | Links |
We headed out to the Royal Palace - which was only a few blocks away. When we got there, unfortunately, it was closed until 2pm (seems common for things to close for lunch from 11am - 2pm). We walked over to the river front and grabbed lunch. On the way, we asked a tuk-tuk driver how much it would cost to go to the Tuol Sleng Museum. He said $2 and we said thanks (we were just checking prices for after lunch - best to get a price before you actually need it :). The driver begged us to let him take us (but we told him we were eating lunch). He begged to follow us and take us after lunch. While we kept declining, he insisted, and followed us to a restaurant and waited for our ride. It's sad how desperate some of the people are here (begging and pleading). We ended up giving him only $1 each way (which was more reasonable for the distance), but he was still very happy to wait for our round trip fare. 
After lunch, we went to Tuol Sleng Museum also called S-21, or Security Prison 21, from the Pol Pot era (also called the genocide museum). The atrocities which occurred here are so grotesque it's difficult to even briefly mention them. Approximately 17,000 people were taken here from 1975-1978, including kids, opposition party members, Pol Pot party members, foreigners, diplomats, etc. After being inventoried with pictures, and chained to the a rail with 19 others, they were tortured, and later (within 6 months) executed in a field (now named the "Killing Fields") about 13km out of Phnom Penh. It's hard to believe that Americans, Australians, Germans, English, etc. were left here to be tortured and killed - especially in our generation's time period. The Tuol Sleng museum itself is a school yard which was converted to a prison in the middle of town. Inside were hundreds of pictures of each victim cataloged before and after (death) - similar to what the Nazis did. I was so disgusted, not only with the acts, but with the fact that this occurred so recently, around the time we were born. I couldn't stay that long - just a few minutes, and then had to leave. There is the "Killing Fields" exhibit 13km out of town, which has 8,000+ skulls and bones lined up, where you can see the skulls blindfolded and arm bones still bound (they had been excavated from the mass graves). There was no way we were going to the fields.
ASIAN ROAD RULES:
As we walked along the riverfront, we decided to go for another foot massage before dinner (how could you pass it up for $6 :)). Of course, everything can be related to Seinfeld, and while we were getting our foot massage, the masseuses were all giggling and laughing (presumably at us?) - like the scene where Elaine gets her pedicure from the Chinese woman - too bad we don't have someone to come and secretly translate for us :). Speaking of Seinfeld, it would be nice to pull a Kramer (importing the Cubans instead of the Cuban cigars), and just import a few of these massage people to get hourly massages at home every day :).