Trip to Cambodia-- Phnom Penh, Part 2 (aka "Don't look 'em in the eyes!")

More on Day One:
When we went looking for live music was pretty sad, we had just gotten terrible massages from Seeing Hands Massage and it was really awkward and the massage was not good. Despite what the reviews say, I would not recommend anybody go to this place. Wendy and I called ahead, to make sure they could take us and when we got there we had to wait (I should have known something was up given the odd vibes in the room, everyone seemed uncomfortable or anxious) we were separated--Wendy went upstairs and I went to this room in which three other people were getting massages, that's fine I thought it would be like a clinic at a massage school just in a room that looked like a prison shower or something like that. We were given loaner clothes to put on. I was told to put my belongings in a locker, but not told where to put the key, so I just kept it by my head. The massage therapist (they are all supposedly trained) didn't speak English so there was no, "What areas do you want me to focus on?" and since we couldn't gesture at each other to speak I just settled in to receive whatever I would get for my $7. The massage was okay, not great and not what I would expect from a trained masseur nor something that was raved about on websites all over the place. The massage therapists were chatting to each other as they worked on us folks, and occasionally someone would announce something over a loud speaker or come in and tell the Seeing Hands folks something (I'm assuming checking to see who would next be available as the guy working on me would check the time each interruption). At best, it was a subpar massage. At worst, an awkward way to spend an hour. So, not bad, but I wouldn't recommend it. Wendy had a more dynamic experience and would probably be happy to demonstrate the vigor with which she received massages in Cambodia. It's not pretty.

When we departed from the super weird massage place, we opted to check for the bar Equinox, which was advertised (yet again) on Lonely Planet's site as having live jam sessions. It was because of this recommendation that it jumped to the top of both of our lists. We got in a tuk-tuk, again thinking the driver would know where something was--especially since it was marked on a map--and were thankful that everything is a flat fee. The driver was asking directions and checking different streets for a while, before finally dropping us off at Equinox. When we got inside, it was dead. No music. >.< When we asked what time the jams started (on the Lonely Planet website it was listed as something like 6-9), the women working the bar informed us that the jam wasn't happening that night but the next night (the website had also said it was every night--it looks like it's been updated since). So we walked around the tiny street it was on to check out what else there was in the area--nothing. We followed the map we had toward a park we had passed on the way out. People were doing dance classes in the park! To crazy hip hop tunes! We had to check it out.

We bumped into two girls from Europe (one Russian and one German) who were looking for a restaurant in the area and we had to join forces to figure out where it was, the map wasn't that great, but I did figure it out for them. ^_^ And Wendy and I were off again to find the dancing crews.

We came to this large round about, I believe it was the Independence Monument or something, and couldn't figure out how to get across--there was no cross walk, no overpass nor underpass for pedestrians. We were stuck. Would we have to flag down a tuk-tuk just to get to the other side of the traffic circle? How did people do it?

While pondering these cultural questions, a German(?) man in his 50s (?) came up and asked if we needed help. We said, yes and that we had no idea how to cross this lane that led into the traffic circle and we just wanted to get to the park. His advice? "Don't look them in the eyes." He went on to explain that the Cambodian driver mentality was that if you made eye contact you were going to yield, if you didn't make eye contact, it fell on the other person to work around you. This stranger basically told Wendy and me to blindly walk into traffic! Wendy and I laughed hysterically thinking he was joking. But, no, he was serious. We asked him to join us on this death inviting action, and he gladly did. Stepping off of the curb and into four lanes of oncoming traffic. We followed. (Dad, please breath, I survived)

Sure enough, the drivers didn't hit us--I have no idea how close they got since I didn't dare look up. I was too busy scampering across the road, mentally bracing for impact and laughing and shrieking from the absurdity of it all!

When we got to the park, the dancers were gone, so we got a tuk tuk back to the hotel and crashed (fell asleep, not automobile accident crashed).


Day Two! The day to tour the major sites of Phnom Penh. Wendy and I went down to breakfast and made sure our driver was on his way. The servers were so sweet, the coffee was good, the fresh fruit delicious, and there was this astounding homemade jam (my favorite was, surprisingly, watermelon- it had something like cinnamon making it more savory than sweet). After eating our fill, we gathered our things to be touristy and see the darker side of the history of Cambodia. Neither Wendy nor I had known anything about Pol Pot before coming to Cambodia, but we quickly learned how nearly everyone 30 years or older had been directly affected by the Pol Pot regime and those in their 20s had siblings, cousins or other family members who had either been murdered or tortured by The Khmer Rouge. Our driver had a brother who was taken, since his father was a professor (or maybe a secondary school teacher) in a village. He was lucky to be left alone, since even toddlers were brutally beaten to death by this regime, and that his father was allowed to live.

We started our day at Tuol Sleng Prison and Genocide Museum, which used to be a school but was converted into a prison during the Pol Pot rule. The grounds were actually beautiful, there were magnolia and palm trees in the courtyard
and the skies were clearly visible and blue. The weather was warm and beautiful. The buildings felt out of place in the natural beauty of Cambodia.


Inside the rooms were photos of some of the victims, ranging in age from infants to the elderly, and in some rooms there were loops still sticking out of the tiled floor with bits of chains still attached (I kept tripping on them). Pol Pot killed an estimated 1.7–2.5 million people because he wanted to restart civilization, he chose these people as victims because they had shown some form of intelligence and free thought. All around the grounds where signs requesting people keep a somber mood (or that's what I'm assuming since I can't read Khmer):



In some of the rooms, there were cots and photos of how people were tortured and killed in the prison. Electrocution, burning, bludgeoning, bleeding and all sorts of forms of torture were used. Here's the (poorly translated) rules of the camp:



After this light-hearted affair, we went out of the city limits to visit The Killing Fields where trucks of people were brought to be killed and buried. There were many disturbing things in this area, the stupa
full of the bones and clothes of many of the victims found in the mass graves, the tree that was used to break the skulls of toddlers and small children, the ditches that were once full of dead bodies and the tree that was used to hold loudspeakers that would play music to drown out the groans and screams of the victims. We ran into the two Euro girls there, Phnom Penh has a small town feel if you're just hitting up the touristy things--like sites of mass murder.


Next, we headed back into town to see the Royal Palace, it was nice and big like palaces are, but I wasn't that into it. There was a Pagoda/Temple on the grounds that had silver tiles on the floor (This is the Silver Pagoda), but the tiles were mostly covered by rugs.Buddha told his followers not to make statues and riches in his name, but monarchs will be monarchs and they built this gaudy place to celebrate an aesthetic monk. Wendy nearly fell into a display case trying to stand in front of a fan, that was pretty awesome. ^_^ We were laughing pretty hard during the day--trying not to do so too much at the more somber locations, but not always succeeding.




Finally, we had planned on trying to take in The National Museum, but we opted for lunch then heading back to the hotel to try and catch the Apsara Dance performance again. We had lunch at a place that looked popular, again being underwhelmed with the food, not that it was terrible, the service was kind of shotty and they were really bad about the veggie thing.

We failed at going to the dance place, but we opted to go to a pretty awesome restaurant near The Tuol Sleng Prison and Genocide Museum, The Bodhi Tree. The Bodhi Tree had good food and good wine, it was directly across from Tuol Sleng, so that was a bit creepy at night, but the grounds themselves were beautiful and the service was pretty good. A little slow, but they were super chill and I think they were just hanging back to be non-obtrusive. They covered the tuk-tuk since I only had big bills ($10s and $20s) and neither the restaurant nor the driver could break them, and just added it to the bill. Pretty cool. I'd recommend this place to anyone looking for good food, it was a little pricier than other restaurants, but was delicious.