The things you can accomplish in one day.

We only had one day in Phnom Penh before we were going to meet up with my family in Siem Reap, so we had a lot of ground to cover.

Be prepared, this is kinda a long blog.

Here was how our day went.
8:30am Cheung Euk Killing Fields
10:00am Teul Sleng Museum (school where the Khmer Rouge tortured people)
11:00am Walk around Phnom Penh
12:00pm Lunch
12:30pm Wat Ounalom
1:30pm Wat Phnom (and rode an elephant! yay!)
2:00pm Royal Palace
4:00pm National Museum
6:00pm Hotel
8:00pm Cambodian Traditional Dance show
9:30pm Dinner
10:30pm Sleep

You already saw the pictures from the Killing Fields and Teul Sleng.

Wat Ounalom


it started to rain....watch this vid.

are you ready for this???? I've reached the mecca, or I guess Cambodia is Buddhist and Hindu, so i've reached Nirvana...

are you ready for it?

Sambo was an amazing elephant. She took us all around the temple (the traditional way to view a temple)...and she was really umm...on a mission to get us back, and she didn't care which trees, leaves and people we were going to trample over to get there, she just wanted to get it over with.

it was actually a little scary.

Despite our amazing experience riding Sambo the elephant, there were a lot of beggars at this temple, and it was really difficult for me to see young children selling things and begging. I prefer not to give a beggar money, so Dave and I bought some food for them. Some kids sold the food back to the vendor and some ate their food. One little girl was trying to sell us some food and began to cry, that made me a little angry because she was preying on me. Thats when we decided to leave.

Oh wait, one more annecdote...when Dave was holding the food for the children, a monkey came running towards him and LEAPED ON HIM to grab at the food. I freaked and stepped out of the way. Dave laughed. HE HASN'T BEEN BITTEN BY A MONKEY....I HAVE!

Royal Palace
its considered holy or sacred so they made me wear a skirt that covered my knees. I didn't mind, i thought it looked nice with the yellow building.






We met a monk at the palace that seemed to like us. I forgot his name, but we talked to him for a while. He told me that school got out early for him and whenever he has a free afternoon, he goes to the Royal Palace and sometimes to the National Museum...he explained that monks get in free everywhere.
He said he has been trying to go to the USA to be with his mother but they wont grant him a visa because monks don't make that much money so he was a threat (illegal immigrant).

National Museum
the great thing about this museum is that they house many of the artifacts from Cambodian temples. I read a notice that said that the Cambodian government and the International Council of Museums actually fought so that many of their own items be returned to them.

This picture goes out to everyone in Dr. Brown's Survey of Southeast Asian Art History class....gotta lustrate those lingums, circumambulate them temples and do a little shakti.


And lastly, the traditional dance.

check out this video.



phew.