French pastries and rehydration IV’s for dinner in Phnom Penh
Wednesday, April 12th, 2006We caught an evening prop-plane flight full of mosquitoes from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia and said to once have been perhaps the finest city in all of Southeast Asia. That is, before the Khmer Rouge wreaked havoc on the country in the late 70’s, which included clearing everyone out of the capital and other cities into the countryside to “re-educate” them as agricultural peasants, leading to the death of a few million people. One can still see why Phnom Penh was once held in such high esteem as it has some elegant wide boulevards and grand colonial houses courtesy of once being under the French as part of Indochina. And it doesn’t feel anywhere nearly as overly crowded as other SE Asia cities such as Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), sadly courtesy of the Khmer Rouge. [read on]
Shan