We ended our first--and only--night in Phnom Penh at a restaurant that funded orphanages and children's hospitals. It's a sad reality of the Cambodian social landscape.
We started our second--and last--day in Phnom Penh early with a trip to our 'round-the-corner locals-only noodle restaurant, and met up with Visal. Our first destination: the Royal Palace.
The king lived in exile during the Red Khmer era, was reinstated in 1993, survived a military coup in 1997, oversaw the transition to a constitutional monarchy, died a revered and beloved king, and proceeded by his son, the new king. The palace is designed in a nearly identical way to the grand palace in Bangkok, which makes sense, since the Khmer style was over long before this palace was constructed.
1. The Royal Palace
The first picture I have put here is an ancient pagoda found in the back of the palace grounds. The religious doctrine carved onto this pagoda are from that awesome middle era when Hindu was transitioning to Buddhism and the random indigenous beliefs from the tribesmen were being incorporated. We were one of the first groups to enter the palace grounds, and so we tried to scoot away from the other tourists.
The following picture is of the Silver Pagoda. Inside it is claimed that there is a relic of one of the Buddhas. This pagoda may not look like it should be called the "Silver Pagoda", but the name comes from the thousands of square pure-silver tiles used to make the floor of this temple. They were laid many hundreds of years ago, rocked while being walked upon, and were mostly covered with rugs. No pictures inside allowed.
This next picture is of one of the main temples on the palace grounds, the one where the king hosts religious festivities:
2. Out and About
We took many more photographs of the royal palace grounds. But we were in a bit of a hurry to see as much as we could before our bus to Siem Reap left at 2 pm. Visal took us right down the street from the palace to this statue, one known as, I believe, the Golden Dragon:
Visal spent a half-dozen years in the military, entering in 1997 during the coup events. There was, during that time, a large shooting at a demonstration. I don't want to get into too many details, since I don't remember them so well and don't want to get it wrong. The Golden Dragon was a gift that represented reconciliation. It still had meaning for Visal, and his comrades as well I'd imagine, and it may be more accurate to replace "meaning" with "bitter taste".
The following picture is the exterior of the largest market in Phnom Penh, the non-Russian Market one. The view from above is way cooler, as the built up exterior looks like a spiral or fractal shape:
One thing Visal told us was that he ultimately wanted the people of the Khmer persuasion to find inner peace. He told us that the Khmer have too much anger and violence in their past to easily get to a peaceful disposition, but that he also has faith that it could happen. There was a chance that the people of Cambodia could find peace...
That was a telling conversation. It was right as he was bringing us to the weekly demonstrations at Constitution Park. People from all over the country come to town to speak and to listen and to be heard and to send a statement. Crossing the street becomes dangerous:
The speeches were bellowing off on the distant PA system, words and inflections I couldn't understand, the crowds intermittently cheering and responding in some call and response action.
I liked the demonstration. I liked being able to get to something that means something real to teh folks in a country. And, importantly, I liked the fact that there were almost no tourists at this get together.
3. Lonh Penh Hill
One of the biggest tourist sites in Phnom Penh we only drove around, and that's Lonh Penh Hill:
Lonh Penh is the namesake of the city. She was a lady who, upon finding a statue of Buddha in the river, dragged it up the bank to the highest hill in the area. Eventually they built a temple around it, and today it's under constant visit by tourists of all kinds.
Over the years, the various villages that sprouted up around Lonh Penh were united as a city, Visal said, and the name changed to Phnom Penh, or "All-of-it Penh" or "the totality of Penh". Pretty wild...
4. Locals Only Temple
Visal took us then to his own temple:
The grounds were humble and strewn with debris. His Buddhism wasn't exactly the same as those that have the showy Wats that tourists and wealthy folks flock to. Children were playing with sticks, young adults were playing with their phones and motor bikes, and monks were washing clothes.
Visal showed us which indigenous elements had been incorporated into their beliefs: the maiden, Mother Earth, created the people with her hair. Maybe that's a part of Buddhist beliefs in general, and/or I'm screwing up the story. In any case, here's a closeup of the sculpture on the wall, and it matched a tattoo on Visal's back:
5. The Mosque
Next we went over to the main, if not only, mosque.
It was also the spot where backpacking white-folks mustered back in the years after the Red Khmer. It sounded like it was a zone of little oversight.
6. Around Town in the Tuk-Tuk
This next building is either the equivalent of their Supreme Court's building, or some other non-judicial bureaucrat building. I thought it looked cool:
Okay...this next picture is all about Bad Timing. If it had worked out it would have been it's own post. My camera's battery was dying and I had to turn it on whenever I wanted a quick picture, and as the day wore on, it took longer and longer to ready itself to shoot the picture. By the time it was ready here, the bikers were directly blocking what I was trying to take a picture of:
Behind those heads was some English language graffiti. It said, "The King stays the King."
Cambodia is a monarchy, but that line is from Season 1 of The Wire, when D'Angelo is schooling Bodie and Poot. The Wire's freaking everywhere.
One of the next stops was across the street from the "Senate Building", or a facsimile thereof. In the picture below the Senate Building is on the left, barely visible. The main subject of the picture is the highly disheveled apartment block building:
Those apartments were supposedly "temporary housing" for families affected by the Red Khmer. They were built directly across the street from the Senate Building so the Senators would be forced to deal with the people every day. Multiple generations have lived here for three decades...
Next Visal took us to Diamond Island, a super wealthy enclave built onto a man-made sand spit in a quiet area of the river. Diamond Island still needs to be built up, but the high-rises are all for wealthy Chinese, Japanese, and white investors. This next picture is of some kind of municipal government building:
7. Lasting View
As we finished up our half-day around town with our man, we reflected on his situation. He was an English speaking, well educated father of two, military veteran and current tuk-tuk driver. Times are lean for him. Both of his parents and two of his siblings were killed by the Red Khmer, and many friends were lost to the unpleasantness in the late '90s.
It's hard to be on the short side of a few different military campaigns--just as the Magyars.
This is the view right outside our guest-house, and for me is one of the lasting images. It shows the density and the feeling of New Orleans is emulated:
One thing about Phnom Penh, as well about simple everywhere out here, is the subject of the first "Aside" post in this series, which will arrive as the next post: white tourists.
8. Shout-Out to Visal
Here's the Man, Visal Mao:
Wish you the best, brother!
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