After a long day of traveling - approximately 24 hours, we finally arrived in the capital of Cambodia - Phnom Phen. Our vacation didn't exactly start on a good note. On our last flight from Taipei to Phnom Phen we sat next to a nice man who was coming home to Cambodia. He has been living in the US for last 30 years after leaving as a teenager. As of 2000 he has started coming back to Cambodia for the sole purpose of looking for any surviving relatives. Out of his immediate family he was the only one able to escape, all of the rest of his immediate relatives were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Of all his extended family he was only able to locate one of his younger cousins who is now in his late thirties. After listening to his stories and all that his country has gone through at the hands of the Khmer Rouge I felt guilty for coming here for a vacation. Going to places like these sure makes you appreciate ALL that we have.
On our way from the airport we talked to our cab driver who also survived the brutality of the Khmer Rogue. After all he has gone through, he has a little baby for whom he is not able to get proper health care for but he is lucky enough because his wife and two kids at least have a place to live - he is renting a room in a house near the airport.
After our "refreshing" start we finally checked into our wonderful hotel, took a shower and went out to explore the town.
You wouldn't believe how crazy the traffic was. We almost considered renting a tuk-tuk (a moped pulling a rik-shaw) just to get across the street! Since we heard plently of bad stuff about Phnom Penh, we were prepared for the worst. It actually turned out to be not that bad - expectations are everything! We walked around for a bit but that got old fast as the city is really polluted and the drivers use lanes only as a suggestions not necessarily as rules. Who says you can't pull into the ongoing traffic head first without stopping? and why shouldn't a two lane road have about six lanes of traffic going through it?
In the end we gave in and took the tuk tuk to the main temple where we saw an elephant and a crazy family of monkeys making their home in the middle of the city and unfortunately a $1 dollar baby. These little 5yr old kids where sent out by their moms with fresh,
FRESH newborns strapped to them to go beg for money... saying '$1 dollar for baby', It is so scary... our social services should see this!!!
We were so tired prior to visiting the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda we needed at least a drink to reset... and that's when the legless man shuffled over and the elephant man came by (he had a floppy head tumor that hung from his temple down to his shoulder). It was little too much for me.
Needless to say, our first day of vacation did not feel like a vacation at all. The funny thing about Cambodia was that you see all these poor families on bikes and mopeds driving around between luxury Lexuse and Escalade. Guess some people are better of!
Luckily by the afternoon we finally started to feel like we were on vacation when we went to explore the beautiful grounds of the palace and finished the day with drinks and dinner by and in the pool of our hotel. We just had to escape it all for a bit.
On our way from the airport we talked to our cab driver who also survived the brutality of the Khmer Rogue. After all he has gone through, he has a little baby for whom he is not able to get proper health care for but he is lucky enough because his wife and two kids at least have a place to live - he is renting a room in a house near the airport.
After our "refreshing" start we finally checked into our wonderful hotel, took a shower and went out to explore the town.
You wouldn't believe how crazy the traffic was. We almost considered renting a tuk-tuk (a moped pulling a rik-shaw) just to get across the street! Since we heard plently of bad stuff about Phnom Penh, we were prepared for the worst. It actually turned out to be not that bad - expectations are everything! We walked around for a bit but that got old fast as the city is really polluted and the drivers use lanes only as a suggestions not necessarily as rules. Who says you can't pull into the ongoing traffic head first without stopping? and why shouldn't a two lane road have about six lanes of traffic going through it? In the end we gave in and took the tuk tuk to the main temple where we saw an elephant and a crazy family of monkeys making their home in the middle of the city and unfortunately a $1 dollar baby. These little 5yr old kids where sent out by their moms with fresh,
FRESH newborns strapped to them to go beg for money... saying '$1 dollar for baby', It is so scary... our social services should see this!!!We were so tired prior to visiting the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda we needed at least a drink to reset... and that's when the legless man shuffled over and the elephant man came by (he had a floppy head tumor that hung from his temple down to his shoulder). It was little too much for me.
Needless to say, our first day of vacation did not feel like a vacation at all. The funny thing about Cambodia was that you see all these poor families on bikes and mopeds driving around between luxury Lexuse and Escalade. Guess some people are better of!
Luckily by the afternoon we finally started to feel like we were on vacation when we went to explore the beautiful grounds of the palace and finished the day with drinks and dinner by and in the pool of our hotel. We just had to escape it all for a bit.
The picture with the bottles is the gas station ;o) no kidding. There are plenty of these on every corner.
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