Phnom Phen – the big dollar store

We took a bus from Siem Reap for the 6-hour ride down to the capital city. Far less insane than Bangkok, we maneuvered fairly easily off the bus and got a tuk-tuk to the Okay Guesthouse. This place, like many others we’ve stayed at, has been written up in the Lonely Planet. I’m about ready to chuck the book were it not for the maps. This place was a zoo! No less than 20 tables set in the common room, all full of travelers. We needed dorm beds, which were a bit pricey at $2 each; even more pricey after we saw the beds. In effect, we were sleeping in the hallway of the laundry ladies’ facilities. A curtain divided our bunks from the rest of the world and Annie awoke one night to a rat tap-dancing on her face. Little schoolgirls have nothing on her voice.

That area of the country is, sadly, best known for the Pol Pot Killing fields and torturous prison museum, Teoul Sleng. We paid our respects to both. The museum was an old converted schoolhouse and the photos and stories there were clearly just a few from millions. It was especially eerie to Annie and I as the building construction was identical to that in Benin. It could just as easily have been a high school in Parakou.

12 kilometers out of town are the Killing Fields. A place of due somberness sharply contrasted with the sounds of schoolkids playing in the lot next door. The tens of dug out depressions in the earth are where the remains of millions were exhumed in the 80’s. All we kept commenting on was how this conflict happened while our parents’ generation were very much alive. It’s really the first time I’ve been hit in the face with how recent the genocide took place. This of course turned my thoughts to Darfur and other atrocities that have taken place during my lifetime. It is an endless cycle and clearly humanity is not learning. Are we doing enough? Are we doing anything? Of course, memorials are meant to spur thoughts like this and I left feeling humbled, grateful for my life, and very curious to learn more about the history of this tiny and surprisingly homogenous country.

On the positive sight seeing spectrum we also went to the Grand Palace and the Museum. Perhaps slightly smaller than their neighbors in Thailand, but just as beautiful. The Palace was amazing for the simple fact that it overlooked the river and the museum had a picturesque courtyard that we literally sat down and read a book in.

Because the currency holds such little value (though nowhere near like Zimbabwe) the US dollar is king. Though both are accepted everywhere, dollars are preferred and honestly, are easier to spend as $1 is equal to 4,000 riel and it just gets bulky. It reminded me of Ghana before they restructured the cedi. People carrying stacks of money worth less than the paper it’s printed on; except in Cambodia the dollar has stepped right in. This difference is clearly due to the history of the country.

Other highlights of the city included the wonderful array of street-food, noodles and meat on a stick galore! There is also this huge grapefruit looking thing, the size of a volleyball before it’s peeled. Delicious…and a dollar. We passed vendors selling things like bbq-ed baby chickens, bowls of grilled tarantulas, scorpians and various other creepy crawlies that go crunch as well as any snack chip would. Sandwiches are also a big thing, piled high with ground liver and chunks of mystery lunchmeat…a dollar. I tried to buy postcard stamp and balked b/c they were just too expensive; each costing …a dollar. Happy hour is a well-known concept there and each draft is…you guessed it, a dollar! Dollar store syndrome is easy to contract there, saying, “well hell, if it’s only a dollar I guess I can afford it!” Dollars add up and we actually spent our full budget there, which was a surprise to me.

Feeling like we’d seen our fill after three days, we headed north to Battambang to take a relaxing pit-stop before heading back into Thailand. It’s the second largest city in Cambodia but apart from the hundreds of high schools, you’d never know it. Relaxing and lacking in the usual traffic madness we spent an afternoon walking around and had a tame evening. The next day saw us crossing the border we’d already crossed 9 days earlier and back in the land of the Bhat. Hopped a bus to Bangkok, learned all about the protestors shutting down the airport and headed north to Chiang Mai on a 3rd class bench overnight train that took 15 hours.

Please don’t worry, we are FINE and are planning to leave via the Malaysian border in a few days. Thankfully, as of yet, travelers are only indirectly affected as all departing flights have been cancelled until further notice but we hadn’t planned to fly out of here anyways. Hope everyone had a great turkey day; we ate tuna subs at subway…something was lost in translation. We’re home in less than a month!!!