We met at about 9 a.m. in the morning for breakfast at the
restaurant of our guesthouse, then split up: Farah, Uma and Soo
Hian were talking a mini-van, provided by the guesthouse, for a tour
of the Killing Fields, the National Museum and the Royal Palace. Lianyi and I were setting off on our own for a walking tour of Phnom
Penh.
Lianyi and I started by taking a tuk-tuk to Wat Phnom,
a modern temple built on the only hill in town. The first thing that
happened when we reached the temple was that a policeman demanded we
pay $1 each for entry, which we doubted was an actual rule. The Lonely
Planet guide does warn you not to make eye contact with policemen in Cambodia;
they're known to ask you for money for any reason under the sun. From
that moment on we tried to avoid any policemen we saw, and we took care
to hide our camera whenever we saw a policeman nearby.
After walking around the temple we went back downhill and
made a stop outside The Raffles Hotel Le Royal. There we took a couple
of photos of ourselves, and a bunch of kids that were playing just
outside the building. We handed out sweets and felt like colonials.
Next
stop was the train station, but it was closed, so we just stood across
the road and took photos of the grand old art deco building.
Then we headed southeast to Psar Thmei, or the Central
Market. It was huge, and the most crowded place I've ever been in.
Every inch is covered with either goods or people. We took a walk
around and then stopped at a small stall to have some bamboo-orange
juice. I was already sweaty and tired by that point; it was amazingly
refreshing. Possibly it would have been better if I had a snack to go along with it. Something like this, perhaps:
We walked around the market some more, attempting to
find our way out. I ended up buying a Lonely Planet Vietnam for US$3.50
after much haggling, but even then Lianyi wouldn't stop nagging at
me because he said I was overpaying.
Finally we made our way out and got to Sorya Shopping
Centre. The interior really made me feel like I'd returned to Singapore
in the 1980s -- the lighting, the store arrangements, the architecture.
We only took a look at the escalator trainers -- people who stand by
the escalators to help those who have never ridden on one before -- and
left.
From there we took a long, long walk to Ph 240 for lunch.
We ate at The Shop. There I had the best meal I had ever had while
travelling: a lamb burger and a lychee-mint cooler. The food was so
good it hurt. I seriously almost cried. You know how when you hear a
song that really touches a part of you that you feel like crying? It
was like that. A part of it had to do, of course, with the fact that I
was starting to like Phnom Penh, finally, and it was already my last day in the
city.
Lianyi had a pretty good pasta salad, but he went and
ordered a dates-banana-molasses shake. It was thicker than
blood, and was not the most thirst-quenching of drinks, especially
after four hours of walking under the hot sun -- and the weather was
pretty damn hot.
Next to The Shop was a cute little boutique that sold really
cool locally-designed accessories and bags and I wanted to get myself a
bag but I couldn't find the shopkeeper and there were so many other
tourists in the shop oohing and aahing. I thought I'd go back after
lunch but then I forgot about it, and now I live in regret. They were
really pretty bags.
After lunch we walked down a couple of
streets until we got to a row of art shops. Lianyi bought another painting from one of the shops here, of a
sunset over Angkor Wat.
Then we walked on and stumbled upon the
Singapore Embassy. It's gorgeous! We were so proud we took photos. A
couple of streets later we stumbled upon the Malaysian Embassy. Let's
just say it only made us prouder of the Singapore one.
Eventually
we ended up at the Independence Monument. We took a couple of photos
and moved on to the Royal Palace. It was closed for lunch, however, so
we made our way to the National Museum.
I was really pretty
exhausted by this point, so after some viewing I sat down and waited
for Lianyi to finish. We barely spent an hour in there. Once he
was done we went back to the Royal Palace.
Again, I was close to
collapsing, and the HORDES of tourists were really wearing me out, so
after looking inside a couple of the pagodas, I sat and waited for Lianyi.
Well that was the end of Lonely Planet's recommended walking
tour. But was it the end for us hardcore travellers? No! We took a
tuk-tuk and made our way to Psar Tuol Tom Pong, or the Russian Market,
to buy some last minute souvenirs for people back home.
And finally, finally, after NINE hours of
walking, we took a tuk-tuk back to our guesthouse. But if only it were
that simple. Our tuk-tuk driver didn't understand our instructions or
the map, and got really, really lost. Eventually, he made a wrong turn
when he was about five minutes away from our guesthouse, so we hopped
off and walked the rest of the way back.
It was fucking
exhausting but I'm glad we did the walking tour. I really fell in love
with Phnom Penh that day. That walk alone made me feel like going back
to Phnom Penh someday, if only to have another meal at The Shop and buy
the pretty bag that eluded me.
Once we got back we showered and
went to our friends' room to ask them out for dinner. They were still
washing up, and so we waited outside their room. When we were all ready
we took a tuk-tuk (none of us had functioning feet anymore by this
point) to Ph 93 (I think) and ended up at a nice little Khmer
restaurant for our last Khmer meal and shake battle.
The overall winner
for the trip with 3 votes was Lianyi, with his delightful apple shake, which
had bits of green apple skin in it and was not at all sour. They
probably added sugar or syrup. Uma and I tied for second place -- I
had a strawberry milkshake which tasted a lot like the one from
McDonald's (except nicer of course) and she had a really nice,
refreshing lime shake. For some reason I can't remember what Farah had
-- again. Soo Hian's coffee shake, I recall, was as strong as death.
When
we finished our meal we upset all the other patrons' meals by making a
lot of noise over taking a group shot. In the one camp were Uma and Lianyi, who were urging Farah to just ask someone for help. In
the other camp were the rest of us, determined as hell to use the
self-timer function on Farah's camera.
Of course, she set it all up and we posed to perfection, and when the self-timer ended, her camera batteries died.
This
lone guy having his dinner stood up and offered to take the photo for
us. It was not at all embarrassing, because we were leaving the country!
And after that, Farah replaced her camera batteries and made us take another group shot on self-timer, so everybody won:
Yes, I am shorter than a ketchup bottle.
After that Soo Hian and Farah went back to the guesthouse and the remaining three of us got a foot massage next door.
And then, back to the guesthouse and home the next day. I carried the
post-holiday blues with me for the rest of the week, and even today as
I sift through the photos and write this entry, I feel quite sad that
it's all over. I know that only means it was a great trip. I still ache
for Laos every once in a while and that happened two years ago.
