Day 70: (22 July 2011):
- Tuktuk to central market due to Felix misunderstanding 100 R vs. $1. Not hear correctly. 1st tuktuk ride.
- Bowl of noodles at market. Get the rice cake with garlic chives. Bags of sauce (very full) that we didn’t really use.
- Walk to the temple. Wat Phnom? Avoid paying entrance gates. Elephant that Felix took photo with the day before. Temple OK, nothing too exciting. On hill.
- Walk to palace, stop by a temple on way, as not sure what is palace. Make small donation. Nice official-looking temple behind wall.
- Followed by tuktuk drivers trying to convince us to use them with variety of tricks.
- National museum. Very good architecture. No photos inside. Nice collection of artefacts, better than Malaysian museums. Lots of people pass out the small fragrant flowers for some Buddhist statues & ask for money. Nice generally chronological organisation. Paintings & story explanations. See lots of similar paintings in future. Same story?
- Accosted by charismatic tuktuk driver translating our iced coffee order. He went to US on some find of training / org visit. Convince us take him.
- Decide drive to Toul Sleng ($5, incl. driver’s telling of his experience). Try sell us $20 tour of killing fields too (offered $15?). Stop for photos at victory monument to try sales pitch again.
- Explain us museum & his experience. Happy when war over, told to go out of city for few days on they can clean it. End up not being able to return. Sneak food, coconut rice, tin roof fish. Careful not get caught or killed. Given only small very thin rice porridge. Story matches other stories heard & text in museum, etc.
- Wife drop off his lunch. We go in to visit.
- 4 Blds. Not in time for movie. Small holding cells, toilet box, chain, etc still in some cells. Pictures of people. Torture equipment. Chair for photographing. Drawings. Skulls with trauma marks. Beds with chains (no mattress). Wood chalkboards with writing (put in after or original?). Graffitti on walls, some math stuff. Barbed wire nets. Blds a bit decaying & ominous. Palm trees outside, nice-looking grounds. Panels of stuff against Khmer Rouge. Photos of some KR leaders, eyes of Duch scratched out, writing / graffitti over picture. Strange to find out some trials just starting. Some leaders already dead. See/meet one of the survivors selling/autographing his book.
- Decide go to killing fields. Timing not as good if originally decided to take long tour, as then would have arranged it so we can see the 1hr movie at Toul Sleng.
- Tuktuk on dusty highway not comfortable. Covered in dust, especially when trucks pall. See small markets & bottles of petrol. Walk up a small hill at one point as tuktuk not have power to take us up.
- See rice being planted near parking place. Fertiliser mix of cow dung & human urine among others.
- Terribly composed video. Wolf howl, wind louder than people in interviews, the slow echo voice at end, cheesy special effects. Museum: skulls with trauma marks, info, etc.
- Lots of excavated pits. Clothes, bone fragments in one section. Clothes fragments everywhere. Tree where they killed children. Very nice-looking memorial with x# of layers: clothes, skulls, large bones, small bones, etc. Walk around the pond.
- Russian Market: lots of clothes, souveniers. Food section cool, dark interior of market. Buy fruit, including red dragonfruit. Very bright celour.
- Dropped off at palace. Rain start. Give $20 instead of $15?. “no tip? it’s OK.” He didn’t drop us at hotel too. Wait for us & offer drop us at hotel for $1.
- Nice, but not extremely impressive. Old murals on wall. Small temples. Temple on a small wooded hill cool. Throne room nice. Yellowish colour, large mirrors. Chandaliers make it look more European than expected. Statues & the tiered “umbrellas.” Nice complex metal gates. Lots of ppl. attracted by model of Angkor. Funny ppl. seem more interested in that than palace. Very large fish in the small encircling pond around model.
- Internet: get info of Kate & Felix’s friend.
- Walk back to close to palace to FCC to try to meet Kate.She say she arrive ~5pm, we there ~5:30. Quick 10min beer ($1 each), no Kate. Nice setting, open, fancy, overlooking the waterfront boulevard.
- Walk back to clone to Internet, look for Felix’s friend. Back & forth, looking for the Quay hotel. Very small sign, eventually found close to FCC after some asking.
- Trendy-looking place & waitress. Friend say Khmer Lazy: I find is common 3rd world complaint. Expensive-ish drinks. The guy works for an NGO, lived here on/off for ~5yrs, but does not speak Khmer.
- Tuktuk to Khmer BBQ place. Beer girls promoting beer. SE Asia habit of ice in beer. Free vegetables. Tannin filled banana slices (with skin). Grilled beef & pork. “Grilled beef nipple” on menu, should have ordered it. Fried rice, wrapped sweet thing in leaf as free dessert. Felix offer tuktuk price on way back, not have them start. The spending/negotiation misfits between me & Felix.
- Note from Kate. Meet at a close Irish Bar just as they plan to leave. Kate get off work @ 7:30 or so due to marital problems of her boss/hostel owners. Go to a rooftop bar overlooking river: 50c beers. Talk. Kate brought nearly entire hostel. Arrange to go to silk farm of someone she worked with before, the next day.
- Too late for bus tickets on return, so will try tomorrow. Meet Kate at her hostel at 7:30. She wark there for accommodation ($4/night).
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