We've reached the capitol...Phnom Penh!

We arrived in Phnom Penh last night after a short plane ride on Siem Reap/Bangkok Airways. We're still not actually sure which airline we flew on, and I don't think the ticket agents did either. One thing we did notice, though, was the plane taxing up to our gate with only one of the turbo prop engines running. I was thinking to myself, that doesn't look right, but what do I know, maybe they just use one to steer the plane on the ground. When we boarded the plane, we were seated right next to one of the engines. I started to get a little nervous when I realized we were heading out to take off, and the pilots had still not started the second engine. I figured the plane might be designed to land with only one engine in the event of an emergency, but surely they wouldn't head off on another flight with only one engine working. After we had gone all the way to the end of the runway and turned around, the engine finally started, and there was a sigh of relief from a group of Japanese travelers sitting behind us. We turned around and smiled, and they laughed as they seemed just as concerned that we were about to take off with only one engine running.

After a 35 minute flight, we were greeted at the airport by our taxi driver from the FCC. He was standing there ready to go with Courtney's name on the sign this time. We gave him our bags and hopped in for the 15 minute or so ride to the hotel. It was about 6:30 when we arrived at the hotel, and it was already starting to get dark in the city. As soon as we got out of the car, there was a security guard helping us with our bags and leading us through a crowd of tuk tuk drivers eager to earn our business for the evening or the following day. It was a little overwhelming, but we managed to get past them and make our way into the lobby of the FCC. The FCC, or Foregin Correspondents Club, is famous in Phnom Penh as the place journalists would meet during the war for information. It was rehabbed in the late 1990's by a company in Hong Kong. The interior is decorated with pictures from the war, and they have a great two level restaurant and bar that overlooks the Mekong River. There are only six rooms in the hotel, and each one is named after one of the famous temples we just left in Siem Reap. We are staying in the Mebon and have a great view of the Mekong River from our second story window.

After checking in at the front desk, we were led to our room by a member of the hotel staff, who carried Courtney's bag up to the room for her, turned on our air conditioner, opened our blinds, and pointed out some of the features in the room. Courtney, being the avid traveler that she is, quickly recognized the opportunity to provide a tip for good service. She reached into her purse and handed the guy 1000 riels, or the equivalent of 25 cents. We laughed about it later and planned to just play dumb and pretend that we didn't understand the exchange rate. After relaxing for a few minutes, we decided our plan for today would be to rent a taxi for the day and head out to see Toul Sleng, the genocide museum; Cheong Ek, the killing fields; the Royal Palace; and the Silver Pagoda. We requested our same taxi driver that picked us up from the airport. He told us that night that we could rent the taxi for the whole day for $20. With the arrangements made for the taxi, we thought we'd venture out and see a little bit of the nightlife along the riverfront. I think we made it about two blocks before we decided to turn back and eat at the hotel. It was just so exhausting being accosted by beggers and vendors every five seconds while walking down the street. There are certainly way more beggers on the streets of Phnom Penh then we have seen in either Ho Chi Minh City or Siem Reap. We headed upstairs to the restaurant in the FCC and sat down to a nice meal. We ordered a jug of sangria, and each enjoyed another Khmer curry dish before heading off to bed.

This morning we met our driver, Mom Sandy, at 7:30 am. When we climbed in the car and started telling him our agenda for the day, he told us that yesterday he had only agreed to take us to the Toul Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields for $20, not be our driver for the whole day. He told we could just walk to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda from our hotel, which we knew we could, but we decided to use the taxi anyways. Mom told us that he was heading back to his village 2 and half hours away in the afternoon to see his family so he wouldn't be able to remain with us throughout the day. We were the first people to arrive at Toul Sleng.

Toul Sleng, now the Genocide Museum, was originally a high school and converted into a prison to torture and kill almost 20,000 innocent people during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The victims included men and women of all ages, as well as those from countries other than Cambodia. The buildings are poorly maintained, and without proper funding, I don't see them standing for too much longer before the roofs cave in. What remains, though, is a pretty powerful testimony to the atrocities committed here. From the outside of two of the buildings, it looks just like a three-level schoolhouse with classrooms along the front. One of the buildings, however, was left as it was during the days it was used as a prison. Razor wire ran across the entire facade of the building to prevent people from committing suicide by jumping off the top floors. When you actually walk through the buildings, you can see remanents of the cells constructed within the walls of the classrooms, and there are still traces of blood all over the floors. People were held in either single cells or with iron shackles on their ankles in mass holding cells. They were systamatically tortured and made to confess that they were working for the CIA or that they had contacted the Vietnamese army to undermine the Khmer Rouge regime. In all it is estimated that over 2 million people were exterminated during their reign.

We walked through the exhibits in about 2 hours when Courtney noticed there was a movie starting in about 40 minutes. We decided to wait for it, partly because we wanted to see it, and partly because we wanted to make our driver wait for us longer after he told us he wasn't going to take us around for the entire day. The movie started and lasted for another hour. We were glad we waited. It was fairly informative, and it followed the story of two cousins that were married and seperated by the regime. The wife was forced to work in one of the work camps, and her husband was a member of the Khmer Rouge army. The story was being told by the mother of the daughter, who was almost 70 years old. It ended with them both being sent to Toul Sleng, though they probably didn't know they were there together. They both were eventually sent off to Cheong Ek to be executed.

When the movie ended, we met our driver and headed off to Cheong Ek. It was about a 25 minute drive from the genocide museum, and you really get a sense of how terrifying it must of been for the prisoners to be loaded into a truck, blindfolded, and driven that distance to the fields. When we arrived at the site, we saw the huge pagoda that has been constructed to house the remains of the almost 9000 people they have exhumed so far.

Much of the fields still have not been touched. When you near the Pagoda, you can see the piles and piles of human skulls stacked on top of one another all the way to the top of the structure. It must of been at least 10 stories tall. We walked around and took it all in before meeting our driver again and heading back to the hotel.

On the drive home, our driver asked us what time we were heading to the airport for our flight tomorrow. Courtney immediately answered, "You'll be at your village. You won't be able to take us." She was happy that she called him out on his lie about needing to be somewhere in the afternoon. After he dropped us off, we saw Mom hanging out in front of the hotel looking for new passengers. I guess they're all just trying to make a buck in this country, and you can't blame them, but you don't like feeling like you've been ripped off either. We were both happy to pay for the taxi today though, if just for the fact that we were't breathing all of the dust and exhaust fumes, and we even got a little bit of AC during the ride. I didn't have to break out my SARS face mask, which I've been using during some of the dusty tuk-tuk rides.

We headed up to the hotel to relax for a bit and have a bite to eat. We ate lunch at the FCC again, but only after sitting down at a local place and being hounded by children selling sunglasses and books. There didn't seem to be anyone in site at the restaurant to help us, so we just walked back to the hotel to get away from the vendors. After a brief power nap in the comforting AC of the hotel, we headed back out again to tackle the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda.

You would think they were giving something away at this place. There were more people here than probably the whole town of Siem Reap. Well maybe not, but it was certainly really crowded. We paid the $6.25 (everyone pretty much uses US dollars here) for our tickets and headed in to see what we could see. There wasn't much actually. There were some nice looking buildings, the throne room, some artifacts, and some more Buddhas. I think I'm "Buddha'd out" by this point. The highlight for me, anyways, was the three monkeys running around outside of one of the buildings. I took some video of them and entertained the children nearby, who were fascinated watching the monkeys on the screen of my camera.

When we left the Royal Palace, we crossed the street and decided to check out the locals, who were hanging out all along the river front. We were happy we did. We came across a number of carts selling insects! Grasshoppers, beatles, big spiders, and others we didn't recognize. I was shooting video, and Courtney was taking pictures when I heard one of the ladies yelling "NO PICTURE!" We smiled, put our cameras away, and moved on to the next one to sneak a few more shots. How can you resist taking pictures of the bug carts?! With that, we called it a day.

Tonight I think we are going to take a tuk-tuk to dinner and venture to a Korean place Courtney had seen in one of the guide books. It should be interesting. It's either going to be really good or really bad. We'll see...