Two Days in Phnom Penh

We slept in on Thursday, and spent the afternoon wandering around the city. I have to admit, I won't be sad to get away from the incessant beeping, staring and cries of "tuk tuk lady." It makes it difficult to get around. And the complete lack of traffic rules don't help! Walking around the city means taking your life in your hands with each step you take. It's an "every man for himself" kind of policy, I think. Normally, I'm not one to shy away from walking out in front of traffic when I think its my turn, but even I got a little nervous a few times!

We happened up a cafe that sold those waffles I love so much, and an interesting little Euro/American market that sold everything from Barilla to Ritz to bottles of wine only marginally more expensive than Trader Joe's. After that, tired as we were, we walked by the Royal Palace and contented ourselves with taking exterior shots, rather than do the whole tour thing.

We hit up the Foreign Correspondents' Club for dinner that evening, a must-see according to some friends. We ran into the three older Aussie men we had gone to the Tiger Temple in Kanchanabur with, and chatted with them a bit. I had worried about them, since they had mentioned they were going to Myanmar, but it turns out they never made it there.

It's funny how you start to recognize people on your travels. These guys, and then there was this kid with bad tribal tattoos down both arms that we saw in Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang. There've probably been more, but these two stick out most because the Aussies were super nice and the kid had REALLY bad tattoos.

Jen and I slept in pretty late the next day, partly due to our exhaustion and mostly due to the bottle of wine we split at FCC to celebrate the half-way mark of our trip!

Friday afternoon was dismal, as we had decided to spend it Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek Killing Fields. Appropriately enough, there were thunderstorms moving through and the rain sounded angry as it fell. Words cannot express the awful things this country has experienced. Apparently, Pol Pot started the evacuation of Phnom Penh in 1975 by claiming that America was going to bomb the city. Coming right on the heels of the Vietnam War, I'm not surprised that people fled. I hate to think that fear of America helped the Khmer Rouge with their disgusting plans.