Sarah and I returned to Phnom Penh on Wednesday via private taxi. The cost for the trip was pretty reasonable, and was advertised as much faster than the bus – after the day-long bus trip up to Siem Reap, we were eager to pay a bit more for a faster ride back south to Phnom Penh. Though our driver broke basically all traffic laws that exist in the United States, he got us from our hotel in Battambang to our hotel in Phnom Penh in under four hours.

We spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool and later, after the temperature had cooled a bit, we walked around to find a bar with a view to watch the sunset. Fortunately, there are tons to choose from along the Mekong River and we settled in to watch the sky fade to black.

After sunset we walked a bit further to Hummus House for some Middle Eastern food. The hummus was (seriously) the best we’ve ever had. The rest of the things we ordered were good too, but the hummus was amazing. Stuffed with chickpeas, we got a tuk tuk to take us home and went to bed.

We had another clear, but hot, day on Thursday to explore the city. However, I didn’t do much of that. My right eye has been bothering me for a couple weeks – well, not my eye, more so my eyelid – and I finally decided something had to be done about it. The skin above my right eye had become red, swollen and itchy…and Sarah had had enough of it! So I relaxed at the hotel in the morning and saw a doctor in the afternoon while Sarah explored some more of the city’s sights. She had a good time walking around and I had a productive meeting with the doctor (he says I got bitten by a beetle and the bite got infected…I’m not so sure about the beetle part but the antibiotics should help regardless). We met up for a late lunch around 4pm at Cadillac Bar & Grill before meandering back to our hotel.

A view of the Independence Monument, celebrating independence from France in 1953.

All hail the king. This was displayed right across from The Royal Palace, home to King Norodom Sihamoni.

Entrance to The Royal Palace. I didn't go inside because it was closed (and even if it were not, tickets were nearly $20 an we've seen quite a few temples in Southeast Asia).

We are heading to Bangkok this evening, but our flight doesn’t leave until 5pm – so we decided to take a tuk tuk to the Choeung Ek Genocide Center (aka the Killing Fields) for a few hours to learn more about the horrible Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia. This site was only one of over 300 similar “killing fields” throughout the country but given its proximity to Phnom Penh it now serves as the primary monument to all who were slain during Pol Pot’s four-year reign. The admission includes an audio tour, which gave us a good mix of history and personal stories about the site. It was a very somber visit – about 2 million people were killed during this time, or about a quarter of Cambodia’s entire population – but we’re glad we took the time to see it.

The grounds of the Choeung Ek Genocide Center mostly contain marked mass graves where bodies were dumped. In what I'm sure was a particularly grizzly scene, 166 headless bodies were found here after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

Bones and tattered clothes were scattered everywhere. Here a jawbone was placed on one of the exhibits.

Other times we could just see bones in the ground. There were signs that literally said “Please don’t step on bones.” Not all of the graves were excavated here and new bones are often found after heavy rains disturb the soil.

Tragically this is where many children were killed. The soldiers usually killed their victims by beating them in order to save bullets. So hard to imagine this happened only 40 years ago.

A commemorative stupa built to house the remains of the bodies in the graves that were exhumed here and to pay tribute to all the victims of the genocide.

Like I said, it was a depressing couple of hours but very informative.

After a quick lunch, we took the tuk tuk back to our hotel, grabbed our bags and headed to the airport. It is a quick flight to Bangkok and our time there is short – we fly to Krabi for some R&R on the beach on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately, Sarah and I do not have much to report from the last three days in Phnom Penh. We arrived on Tuesday in much less dramatic fashion than we left Ho Chi Minh City (which is to say, no scissor-wielding cabbies looking for a fight…) and checked into the TeaHouse Asian Urban Hotel. Though it’s a bit of a mouthful to spit out, I was really glad we had such a nice place to say while in Phnom Penh.

We settled in quickly and walked over to Eclipse in order to catch the sunset from one of the city’s best vantage points.

Sunset over Phnom Penh on a “clear” day…glad we didn’t arrive on a “hazy” day!

After darkness set in over Phnom Penh, we walked to a local restaurant, Domrei Kitchen, that Sarah found on TripAdvisor – we wanted to dive right in and try Cambodian food and this place was well reviewed. Sadly, TripAdvisor let us down. The food was bland and the service mediocre; that said, we were still excited to be in Cambodia and explore the city over the next two days.

Like I said at the beginning, though, we have little to report…because things didn’t work out exactly as planned. I’ve had a cold that’s been bothering me for a couple days and it kept me out of commission for most of our time in Phnom Penh. I knew when my masseur was sneezing on me during our Halong Bay cruise - lower spa standards in this part of the world! - that I might catch what he had, but I didn’t think it would turn out to be this bad. Oh well, considering we’ve both been healthy for the majority of our trip, it’s hard to complain.

We spent most of our time relaxing by the pool at our hotel. Having a couple lazy days reading and soaking up the sun was probably good for us anyway, given how much we’ve been on the move lately. I ventured out a few times per day for meals, Sarah explored more of the neighborhood to do some shopping and even stopped by the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (which, as its name suggests, is a pretty heavy experience).

From Sarah: The Tuol Sleng Genocide museum is located at S-21, the former prison and torture-house used by the deadly Khmer Rouge regime during the late 1970s. During the genocidal rule of Pol Pot, it is estimated that nearly two million Cambodians - approximately 25% of the country's population at that time - were slaughtered. The museum is a harrowing look at a (fairly recent) historical travesty in Cambodia and calls to mind the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Worse still, the government that has since ruled the country is horribly corrupt and Cambodians continue to suffer from a lack of education, infrastructure and basic human rights. You can learn more about all of this here.

One of the prisoner torture rooms. This was substantially larger than where most of the prisoners had to stay, chained at all times.

Looking down the hall at the prisoner cells.

It's hard to tell but each of these is a small chamber that held multiple prisoners.

The museum tour ended with a peace bell...surrounded by skulls and bones from those who were massacred here.

From far away the building looks much more like it's original intended structure - a middle school.

It's too bad that we didn't get to see much in Phnom Penh. Fortunately, though, we're planning to spend two and a half days here at the end of our time in Cambodia, so we'll be able to see the city next time we come through.

We woke up early today so we could catch the bus up to Siem Reap. We have three days there to see Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples – fingers crossed that I've kicked this cold by then!

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