French pastries and rehydration IV’s for dinner in Phnom Penh
We 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.
We checked into the ornate and imposing Hotel Cambodiana downtown along the river and Elsie, Shan, and I went out for a walk to check out the nearby night market. There wasn’t much going on there other than a lot of junky carnival rides waiting to be used by people a lot more danger-seeking than us, so we walked around a bit more. Everywhere we looked the sidewalks and riverbank were full of people on bamboo mats with large TV’s and stereo systems set up next to small stoves. These “restaurants” seemed like a pretty cool way for a family or some friends to go out to eat and sing some karaoke or watch a movie under the stars. As much as we all love karaoke, we decided to pass this one time.
The next morning we arranged for a taxi driver to take us to Tuol Sleng, the high school that was turned into torture prison S-21 by the Khmer Rouge. It is now is a Genocide Museum dedicated to helping people learn about and understand the brutality of the Khmer Rouge with hopes that similar atrocities will never happen again. I visited Tuol Sleng on my backpacking trip nearly 8 years ago and was somewhat surprised to see many more tourists and tour guides this time around. The exhibits have pretty much remained the same: chilling and horrific photos, drawings, torture tools, stories, and other reminders of the evil things that happened here and across the country. Visiting Tuol Sleng is not a pleasant or enjoyable experience but highly educational and I believe a must for anyone who travels to Cambodia to help you understand what the country and its people have been through.
After Tuol Sleng we had planned to visit the “killing fields” of Choeung Ek, a site of mass graves that is also a very important part of understanding the story of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. Unfortunately Bill wasn’t feeling well from some salad he ate so we took him and Elsie back to the hotel before Shan and I ventured on to the killing fields site with our driver. Arriving at the site we were greeted by the giant stupa (Buddhist religious tower) housing the thousands of skulls found in the mass graves, but apart from that there wasn’t much to see other than the mounds of dirt that used to be the mass graves and some bits of bone and cloth that are said to be remnants of the graves but looked a little too artificial. The most exhilarating part of our trip to the killing fields of Choeung Ek was the taxi ride back as our old beat up Toyota was rear-ended by a huge shiny new pick-up truck that didn’t stop to settle the matter. Our driver decided to settle the matter in his own way so he took us on a wild chase of the truck through small streets and alleys until the truck finally stopped on a remote back alley and our hearts stopped as well as we imagined what might go down. After some mild arguing between the two drivers they apparently worked out the issue and lucky for me it didn’t take them too long as I had lost nearly all circulation in my hands from clutching the door handle with one hand and Shan’s hand with the other extremely tightly as I was ready to lead us on an escape if necessary. I really need to watch less TV.
Back at the hotel pool, we met a really interesting American doctor who also turned out to be an MIT alum who had come to Cambodia to set up a clinic to help burn victims and in the process also managed to start playing some on the Asia pro golf tour after not playing golf for many years back home. He told us about a book he’s working on about his experiences and we offered to read it during our upcoming trip to the beaches in the south of Cambodia and give him some feedback. Lucky for us that we met the doctor that afternoon as Bill got much sicker that evening so we took him to the doctor’s clinic in the ground floor of the hotel. Bill was given excellent treatment and started on a diet of rehydration and antibiotic IV’s that would be his only “meals” for the next couple days as he was pretty sick. We cancelled our trip to the beaches to stay and help look after Bill and also Elsie who was a bit sick.
We wanted to stay close in case their health got worse so we decided to see what the hotel had to offer for dinner and hit the jackpot. The hotel had a French bakery that our guidebook said was the best in the country and it turned out that at 6pm everyday they sold their remaining pastries at a 40% discount. It was only a few minutes after 6pm when we learned this so we went to the bakery and nearly bought the place out. We feasted on some of the most delicious chocolate croissants, almond croissants, éclairs, coconut tarts, pies, and other pastries in what turned out to be one of the best and cheapest dinners I have ever had! It was so good that we did the same the next 2 nights, showing up at the bakery about 10 minutes before 6pm to scout out the best things to buy when the clock hit that magic number. We weren’t the only ones with this idea and had a fun time throwing some elbows at pushy Japanese tourists when necessary to get the best éclairs.
Shan and I did finally venture out of the hotel on Sunday evening (after another fabulous pastry-only dinner of course) and walked down to the Foreign Correspondents Club to have a drink and enjoy the wonderful open-air view along the river. Sunday is a day off for most locals and it seemed like the entire country and all their relatives from abroad had congregated along the river to enjoy some food and drink and some of the best people watching we’ve ever experienced. Our favorite part of the evening was playing a game we called “find the motorbike with the most people riding on it” and I was the winner after spotting a small beaten-up motorbike with 5 teenagers squeezed incredibly tightly together on top but trying so hard to look cool as they cruised the main strip.
Bill and Elsie recovered fine and quickly and we were able to fly from Phnom Penh to Bangkok on Monday, with Bill and Elsie able to get a flight right away from Bangkok to Taiwan. Shan and I were unable to change our flight so once again we spent “One Night in Bangkok.” After an adventurous couple weeks with Shan’s parents that we all thoroughly enjoyed and wouldn’t have traded for the world, it was nice to have one night to ourselves back at our home away from home to rest up and get ready for 2 weeks in Taiwan.
Anthony
Tags: Cambodia, Phnom Penh, SE Asia, Southeast Asia, Travel
Shan