Monday, July 16, 2012

Cambodia - Phnom Penh

Day 155 - Monday, June 25

There were quite a few friendly folks on my boat to Phnom Penh. Three of us decided to hire a tuk-tuk driver for the day on Monday. We headed first to the killing fields in Choeung Ek. It was a sobering experience to say the least.
From Cambodia - Phnom Penh
From Cambodia - Phnom Penh
Then continuing with the depressing sights, we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which was located at a school that was converted to a prison where people were held and tortured before being sent to the killing fields to be murdered.
From Cambodia - Phnom Penh
We also checked out the National Museum, which itself was a sight worth seeing
From Cambodia - Phnom Penh
And the Royal Palace:
From Cambodia - Phnom Penh
That night, the three of us, our tuk-tuk driver and two others from our boat met up at a "beer garden," a popular spot with the locals recommended by a our tuk tuk driver, where they cooked a whole cow on a spit. But I have no idea why it's called a beer garden, because there was nothing even resembling plant life anywhere in the restaurant that wasn't served on a plate. We also sampled some of Cambodia's finest crickets while we were there. It seems none of the pictures have made it online yet, but they looked just like these that I came across earlier in the day:
From Cambodia - Phnom Penh
The ones I sampled looked most like the dark crickets in the back center of the photo above. Peer pressure wins again.

Day 156 - Tuesday, June 26

Tuesday was a pretty lazy day. I had debated leaving Phnom Penh on Tuesday, but after quite a few beers on Monday, sleeping in was a little too tempting. It ended up raining most of the afternoon, so I don't think I made it out of the hotel until about 6pm to meet some American friends that I had met in Vietnam a few days before.

Day 157 - Wednesday, June 27

Mostly a travel day. I took the bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, and it rained during most of the bus ride and most of the night after I arrived. It seems wet season is still in full force. About midway through the trip a Cambodian woman got on the bus and sat down next to me with a bag full of crickets and offerred me one. I guess they're not just there for tourists to have a story to tell their friends back home.

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