phnom penh
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The royal palace at Phnom Penh
Doing my bit for the ozone layer*, I travelled to Phnom Penh by road in a big bus, which was cheap and well organised. The staff of 4 on the bus managed all the passport stampings and shepherded us through the immigration building. Then we were taken to a breakfast stop (the trip started at dawn) all included in the price. The contrast with Viet Nam is immediate – the roads pitted and difficult (but with signs of major rebuilding has been a feature of my road travel on this trip, with Bhutan and the roads in Thailand also under major infrastructure development). The whole look of the place suggests a poorer lifestyle (although Viet Nam was hardly well off).
I was told Phnom Penh would be dusty and dirty, but I believe there have been major efforts to clean up in recent years and my impression was of quite a pleasant small city, with some good bars and restaurants, especially along the road facing the river, and in the diplomatic quarter, and not particularlry hassly – you do get a lot of touting and selling but not very persistent.
I did take up the offer of a guided tour on motorbike by a young man called Yout. What I hadn’t realised is that he didn’t actually have a ‘moto’ so we had to hire a moto taxi and go round all three of us on the back. Don’t try this at home – you will get arrested – but it’s very common here to see three or four people on a motorbike (even saw five on one occasion looking like sardines on wheels). Anyway the tour was comprehensive and I didn’t fall off.
There is a fairly limited number of tourist sites. All the temples were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge and though some have been rebuilt they are all modern. The main sites are the Royal Palace and its temple – the Silver Pagoda – a complex similar to that in Bangkok but with some very pleasant gardens as well; the Independence Monument; and Wat Phnom. This translates as Mountain Temple. Mountains or even hills being scarce in these parts, this is in fact an artificial hill and has given its name to the whole city. It’s an attractive temple at the top of a long climb through forest trees well supplied with monkeys, who live on a diet of bananas supplied by worshippers on their way up. Also worth visiting are the National Museum, a cloistered series of rooms around a central garden, housing a collection of art and sculpture, mostly from the Angkor Wat period; and the Central Market, a vast crumbling art deco hall with stalls spilling out all around into the surrounding square.
You travel between these for the most part along French style boulevards with huge mature trees, many of them in flower at this time of the year. Very pleasant on the moto.
Yout also gave me a bit of an insight into the city’s night life with a visit to some of the pavement bars and late night clubs, culminating in the Heart of Darkness, an aptly named dance club for ex-pats and the local rich kids.
*I know it’s a bit of a cop out but I am going to make my trip carbon neutral by having some trees planted. Anyone know a good/reliable scheme?
I was told Phnom Penh would be dusty and dirty, but I believe there have been major efforts to clean up in recent years and my impression was of quite a pleasant small city, with some good bars and restaurants, especially along the road facing the river, and in the diplomatic quarter, and not particularlry hassly – you do get a lot of touting and selling but not very persistent.
I did take up the offer of a guided tour on motorbike by a young man called Yout. What I hadn’t realised is that he didn’t actually have a ‘moto’ so we had to hire a moto taxi and go round all three of us on the back. Don’t try this at home – you will get arrested – but it’s very common here to see three or four people on a motorbike (even saw five on one occasion looking like sardines on wheels). Anyway the tour was comprehensive and I didn’t fall off.
There is a fairly limited number of tourist sites. All the temples were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge and though some have been rebuilt they are all modern. The main sites are the Royal Palace and its temple – the Silver Pagoda – a complex similar to that in Bangkok but with some very pleasant gardens as well; the Independence Monument; and Wat Phnom. This translates as Mountain Temple. Mountains or even hills being scarce in these parts, this is in fact an artificial hill and has given its name to the whole city. It’s an attractive temple at the top of a long climb through forest trees well supplied with monkeys, who live on a diet of bananas supplied by worshippers on their way up. Also worth visiting are the National Museum, a cloistered series of rooms around a central garden, housing a collection of art and sculpture, mostly from the Angkor Wat period; and the Central Market, a vast crumbling art deco hall with stalls spilling out all around into the surrounding square.
You travel between these for the most part along French style boulevards with huge mature trees, many of them in flower at this time of the year. Very pleasant on the moto.
Yout also gave me a bit of an insight into the city’s night life with a visit to some of the pavement bars and late night clubs, culminating in the Heart of Darkness, an aptly named dance club for ex-pats and the local rich kids.
*I know it’s a bit of a cop out but I am going to make my trip carbon neutral by having some trees planted. Anyone know a good/reliable scheme?
posted by Keith at 11:28 am
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