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Phnom Penh
This was my second visit to Cambodia. My first impression after I landed and drove for the first time through the streets with my friends was, that traffic has increased a lot and my friends told
me, that this is right. On the other side, some roads are new and
are in a much better condition than before.
Killing Fields (Choeung Ek Memorial)
Killing Fields is a must see. It is some 8 kilometres outside of Phnom
Penh (but could be reached easily by Motordup [Motorcycle Taxi] or
car). The Khmer Rouge executed people at this place or at Toul
Sleng Prison during their terror regime. In the mass graves at Choeung Ek were more than 17000
people buried.
There is a memorial stupa (with skulls inside as a memory
to the death) and some signs about the history of this place and the
time after the Khmer Rouge.
Toul Sleng is a former high school, but was turned into a prison and
torture facility under the regime of the Khmer Rouge in 1975. More
than 17000 people were killed at this place and later buried at
Killing Fields.
Nowadays the Toul Sleng Prison is renovated and
turned into a museum and a memorial, showing pictures of the victims,
torture facilities and paintings of the Khmer Rouge regime. As the
Khmer Rouge take photos of every victim, thousands of photos were
found and some of them a visible at Toul Sleng Museum.
Guides are available in English, French and on request in German language. if you search for more information about the Genocide in Cambodia you should visit the homepage of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DCCam).
National Museum
The National Museum is next to the Royal Palace and in walkable
distance to the River Front with Sisowath Quay, it is closed on
Monday and during lunch break (11.00 – 14.00), but it seems, that the opening hours
are not enforced.
In this museum displays more than 4000
objects (but not always in a good quality) such as statues of the
Angkorian time, lingas and other artefacts. You should visit this
museums before you visit the ruins of Angkor. The museum has a nice
yard.
A good place for taking a photo of this 1920 built museum is
the Foreign Correspondents Club, especially the sun deck.
Royal Palace and “Silver Pagoda”
The Royal Palace is next to the National Museum and the Sisowath
Quay. It is open daily and closed in the lunch time between 11.30 and
14.00; you have to pay a fee if youre using foto camera or video camera.
The
palace is surrounded by a yellow wall and the Chan Chaya Pavillon,
appr. 100 m south of the entrance. The Throne Hall is the main
building, which is still used for political ceremonies (if a foreign
minister visits Cambodia etc.). Some smaller building contain the
public treasury of the King of Cambodia. Another European styled
building is a present of Napoleon III. You leave this part of the
palace and enter another yard, where the famous Silver Pagoda (wat
Preah Keo Morokat). The Pagoda draws its name from the more than 5000
silver tiles which cover the floor. The yard also contains some
stupas. You leave the Palace through a back exit, where you can buy
souvenirs and visit a typical Cambodian House.
If you have a
driver waiting, tell them to come to the back exit or walk to the
main entrance.
Wat Phnom
The “highest point” of Phnom Penh near the Raffles Hotel in the
center of a circle. On top of the hill is a temple / wat and a stupa.
The are many vendors over there and you should watch you belongings.
The legend of the founding of Wat Phnom is tied to the beginnings
of Phnom Penh.. One says, in 1372 Lady Penh fished a floating Koki
tree out of the river. Inside the tree were four Buddha statues. She
built a hill (the Khmer word for hill is “Phnom”) and a small
temple (in Khmer: Wat) at what is now the site of Wat Phnom. Later,
the surrounding area became known after the hill and its creator
Phnom Penh. The temple on the top of the hill was (re)built in 1926.
FCC
The FCC was the place were reporters stayed in the time of the Khmer
Rouge regime, nowadays it is a nice restaurant which offers nice
views to Sisowath Quay and the National Museum. The meals are of
average quality and the service is sometimes a bit slow, but to me it
a nice place watching the vivant life on the street. There are no
windows, only fans, so it is not cold (by air condition) but with a
fresh wind.
A W-Lan Connection is available in the restaurant.
The FCC also offer some rooms for guests.
Also I can
recommend the Friends (Mith Samlanh) Restaurant, near the National
Museum (opposite the main entrance). This is an NGO project, part of
the program to teach street youth marketable skills. One of the head
is an Austrian, who lived in Canada. The Portions are small, so that
one should take more than one meal. The food tastes very good and the
price is cheap.
In the evening, my favourite place was (and still will be in the future) the Elephant Bar in the Hotel Le Royal (by Raffles), where one gets not only two drinks for the price of one during happy hour (17.00 – 20.00) but also a real mixed Singapore Sling (in Singapore is already mixed when ordered) or again the FCC.
I
can recommend Canbypublications for further information about Phnom
Penh. Phnom Penh also has now an own homepage. Good places for shopping
(fashion, watches, etc.) is Central Market, Phsar Thmey or if you are
interested in local artwork as in fashion, CD, DVD, etc., Russian
Market, Phsar Toul Tom Poung. If you like to take a massage, I
recommend to use “Seeing Hands”, a formerly NGO project..