Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is a hard city to describe. It is a large city and people are constantly trying to get you to buy motorcycle taxis, rickshaws, tuk tuks or give them food, water, and money. Tourist wander the streets and it sounds like social hour at a UN meeting with all the varieties of languages being spoken. Bars line the streets all competing for happy hour and you can make your choice between Mexican, Turkish, American, French, and Indian foods. If you are brave, you can wander down a side street and try frog, cat, or dog (we only saw frogs and dogs). Still with this hustle and bustle, the city is eerily quiet at the same time. The fact that some thing tragic happened to these people not too long ago is very evident in the vibe of the city.

We had to look a bit to find a hotel at a reasonable price for what was being offered. And many of the clientele were those types where you cannot tell if they are suffering from heat stroke or have been indulging in the drugs that are sold all around you. Also, many of the hotels have signs at the entrance warning people of their policies on sex tourism and children prostitutes  (though apparently most of the molesters are native Cambodians). Tuk Tuks advertise that orphanages are not tourist spots. And I might add that like in Thailand and Vietnam, it is common to see a young twenty-something native woman with a white man in his sixties.

The city is not beautiful. The temples are beautiful with their statues and fine gardens, as well as the gold and jeweled buildings. But it becomes ugly along side the beggars standing in its courtyards or in the garbage piled up outside. Children swarm you and beg for money, food, and water. I remember one group of children sitting with their mother, as soon as they saw us the children swarmed us. Later that day we returned to the spot and their mother was talking on a fairly new cell phone.

We stayed only two full days, escaping by bus to Siem Reap. We didn't even make it to the killing fields, we decided we just didn't want to see them. The bus was another seven-hour journey, this time in an ancient bus with an ancient cooling system. As we sweated into giant puddles, we drove by mansions surrounded by mountains of garbage and streams lapping at the walls of garbage.