Choeung Ek, National Museum and the Royal Palace

This is my only full day in Phnom Penh before i move off to Siem Reap and so i decided to make the most of it and hire a taxi for the day (this cost me £17 and my driver personally waited for me before driving me around the city).

I decided a while ago, that i would have to see the Killing fields, which is called Choeung Ek to the Cambodians , and i thought it would be worthwhile to see the National museum which has the largest collection of Khmer artifacts in the world (although i dare say the British Museum could give them a run for their money!) and finally on to the Royal Palace, and the Silver Pagoda.

One thing that is of a slight annoyance is the fact that in some of these places, photography is forbidden. I am trying to work out the rationale for this, and suspect it has something to do with them wanting to sell guidebooks with nice glossy pictures in themselves.

Anyway, Choeung Ek is a hell of a moving experience. My blog has attempted to be a relatively lighthearted thing from the outset, but i just feel i can't be so blase on this particular subject. Men, Women and children were brought to this place and executed for no sane reason whatsoever. Also, to save on bullets, the Khmer Rouge resorted to using axes and various other bludgeoning devices to kill their own people, and the marks of these can been seen on some of the skulls.

Anyway, that is all I will say about it here, as the pictures below say more than I ever could.


Ok, after the killing fields, I returned to Phnom Penh to visit the National museum, which i have to say is not too shabby, considering the general state of antiquities in the country. Apparently, this is where a lot of treasures from Angkor Wat were taken when the Khmer Rouge were on the rampage, destroying anything cultural. Having said that, it is a bit one dimensional, in that it only has Khmer artifacts. I guess we are just spoiled with places like the British museum, which has some of the finest treasures in the world (plundered during our empire days!). Having said that, it is really hard to fault the intricacy and artistry of Khmer buildings, they are really spectacular.

I quite enjoyed this sign, primarily because of it polite request for people not to bring in handguns and explosives. I duly handed in my Semtex and .44 Magnum, and continued the tour. Handguns are par for the course in Cambodia, as you can imagine there are very little rules here, but that does not instantly mean you are going to be robbed at gunpoint. The people here are very respectful.

After the museum, i paid a visit to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. Again, the architecture on these buildings was nothing short of stunning, but once again they were a bit funny about people taking photos of the interiors, which means i cant show you the hundreds of tiles made out of pure silver from which the Silver Pagoda gets its name. I did however get some nice exterior shots of the buildings.
One thing that is stark in Cambodia is the poverty, there is a lot of begging, and you would have to have a heart of stone not to give a few pennies to some of the people. One chap outside the National museum had no hands and one leg (which i presume was the result of a landmine), and he was trying to sell me a Lonely Planet book of Cambodia to make some coins. Unfortunately I have this book already, but I gave him a dollar (which is approximately what an average Cambodian earns in a day) for his troubles, and he was over the moon.