Well my journey has taken me to yet another far off land. This time, the country is Cambodia and my first stop was the capital city of Phnom Penh. Upon my arrival, I got a taxi from the airport and set out to find a hotel. While I was sitting in the taxi looking at my trusty Lonely Planet book to find a hotel, the taxi driver took notice and made a recommendation to me. Now normal traveling rules state that you should NEVER take the driver up on their offers because they almost ALWAYS involve some kind of a scam / ripoff. For whatever reason, I felt differently this time and decided to take the driver up on his offer. He promised that my hotel would be in a great location and would only cost me $15.00 a night for my own room, TV, AC, and hot water. While this sounded too good to be true, I still went along with it.
Upon my arrival at my hotel, things seemed to be looking pretty good. I was smack in the center of the "sight-seeing"area and the place looked great. I was very happy when sure enough my room cost the $15.00 that my driver had promised. I was even happier when I discovered that it came true to form just like he said. (It goes to show that there are good people out there.) After checking in, I thanked my driver, but before I could go, being the business person that he is, he offered to pick me up the following day and be my driver for the day. I felt like I owed him one and so I decided to go along with it. After dropping my stuff down, I called it a night and went to sleep.
The next day, I got up early and just like he said, my driver from the day before was waiting in the lobby for me. The first site that I decided to visit, was the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. For those of you that do not know, back in the 1970's there was a communist movement in Cambodia which was headed by a terrorist named Pol Pot who was just as bad as Hitler, Stalin, Osama, etc. He basically arrested and executed thousands of innocent people for no reason other than that he didn't like them. The killing Fields are the place where the prisoners were taken to be beaten to death, because shooting them was a waste of precious bullets. The fields themselves were very scary (there were mass pits that use to contain hundreds of bodies each) but the scariest thing of all was huge monument that was completely see through. The reason that it is see through is because of the thousands of human skulls that are inside of it. The sight of all of those skulls really knocked home how bad this man and his regime really were.
After the killing fields, I decided to do the most logical thing I could think of, I went to the Army Base / shooting range to fire off automatic weapons. Now the guns at this range are not legal for civilians in the United States, let alone a range letting untrained civilians fire them at will. We proceeded to go to the range and I was presented with a buffet of firearms to choose from ranging from a bazooka, to a Tommy-gun, to an M16, to an AK47, to many others that I don't even feel like taking the time to list. (Basically many HEAVY artillery firearms.) While I would have loved to try them all, it was pretty expensive so I limited my selection to just two. I selected the M16 and the AK47. After making my selection, the guy who worked there took me out to the range, slammed in the magazine (bullets) and let me go at it. After shooting some rounds on single-shot mode, he flicked the switch and let me blast away on rapid fire. I must say that it was pretty awesome but definitely something that would NEVER be legal in the states.
After my fun at the range, I came back to town and got dropped off by my driver friend. After saying goodbye, I grabbed some lunch before setting out to check out some of the historical sights around the city. The first post-lunch sight that I checked out was the National Museum. This is a museum that houses many of Cambodia's artifacts that have been uncovered over the years by archaeologists. They included many Hindu idols and statues as well as many Buddha relics and statues.
After leaving the National Museum, I headed to the Royal Palace. This is the official residence of the Royal Family of Cambodia and is quite beautiful. Although you can not really see tooo much of the grounds (because the family lives there) I was definitely able to see some of the beautiful buildings that lay on the grounds. I was amazed at how much gold was incorporated into the buildings. They were especially beautiful while the afternoon sun reflected off of them.
Now my day wasn't done yet. For dinner that night, I met up with one of my older brother's friends from high school who is teaching at a local school over here. We decided to go to a local spot so that I could get the true Cambodian dining experience. It was a really fun restaurant and instead of ordering cooked food, we ordered our food raw and we got to grill it ourselves on a miniature propane stove at our table. It was quite an awesome experience. After this, I finally called it a day and went to sleep.
The next day, because I had already covered most of the sights in the city, I woke up late and got a late start to the day. The one site I did go to though was S-21 or Security Prison 21. Now logically speaking, one goes to this right before the Killing Fields but I decided not to for some reason. S-21 is the prison/detention center where Pol Pot and his band of terrorists interrogated and tortured their innocent prisoners before taking them to the Killing Fields to be executed. After walking around the grounds for a while, I headed back to town and just chilled out for the rest of the day.
That about sums up my Phnom Penh experience. Its off to Siem Reap in the North of Cambodia tomorrow to checkout the 8th Wonder of the World, The Temple Vally of Angkor!
Until next time,
Evan
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