Wildlife Traffic in Phnom Penh

Out of the way, civilization!

I was on my way to a temple on a hill, Wat Phnom, riding my moto (tuktuk) when I chanced upon an elephant walking along Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh's major riverside boulevard, running along the confluence of Mekong and the Tonle Sap Rivers. The 3 kilometer tourist strip is filled with hotels and cafes, a pleasant "tourist trap". The promenade has changed a lot in the last 5 years or so. It's a great place to watch people and spend a few cambodian riel for street food which includes fruits, corn on a cob, chestnuts, etc.

If an elephant "strolled" through Roxas Boulevard, Manila's riverside road, traffic would literally stop, wouldn't it?

This is the Eye in the Sky!  

Europe Guest House - A Home Away From Home in Phnom Penh

Finding accommodations during a trip is always a tricky thing. I lose sleep over it, and I take days checking out reviews: Lonely Planet, wikitravel, tripadvisor, even guest comments from Agoda. But you see, even the best laid plans can turn a bit dodgy. I once followed a Lonely Planet recommended budget guest house and ended up staying in a hostel that subs as a girlie bar and brothel. I was well taken cared of, but it was a bit unnerving finding my entrance where heavily made up girls were dressed in skimpy dresses. This was Phnom Penh before its face lift. The hostel still stands there, and though I had fond memories of my stay, I should have researched better.

Fast forward to 2011: I carefully read through review sites. I've narrowed down my list to 6 places, two of them have since been demolished in the Boeung Kak lake area (the capital's former backpacker joint). For this leg of travel, I've booked a room at the Green House in Beung Tra Bek, at the southern part of the capital, upon arrival from Bangkok. For my return from Siem Reap, I've finally decided on "Europe Guest House" - one of my most satisfying decisions.

Nope, Europe Guest House is not your run-of-the-mill, fly-by-night accommodation. It's classier than that, but neither is it a seat of boundless opulence. It's a family-run guest house located in a relatively quiet street just a block from the riverside. In my qualitative criteria, this little gem makes a lot of checks.

The guest house is situated at Street no. 136. If that doesn't mean anything to the unfamiliar, it's a block away from the beautiful promenade along Sisowath Quay (Phnom Penh's Roxas Boulevard or Queen's Walk), right in the heart of the city. It is a very central location, but far removed from the noise of the busy riverside promenade. In fact, it's just 2 blocks away from Sokha Komar Tep's bus terminal and Mekong Express' terminal (these terminals aren't really bus garages, but side streets near their bus company's main offices where these buses depart and arrive). It's a measly $2 tuktuk ride from the bus stop. There's a 24-hour convenience store right in front of it - named Smile Shop; the Central Market (think Saigon's Ben Thanh Market) is 4 blocks away and easily reached on foot. There are local eateries surrounding the area, including the delectable and cheap Restaurant 126, right at the corner of Street 13.

If you're the curious type who wants to check out local produce, the Kandal Market is even nearer. Turn left from Europe Guest House until you reach Sisowath Quay to find the beautiful (newly developed riverside) promenade directly facing the Tonle Sap, the great river running here all the way to Siem Reap up north. The Tonle Sap is a direct tributary of the great Mekong River, in fact the Tonle Sap merges into the Mekong less than a kilometer from here (at the promenade fronting the Royal Palace).

KFC is nearby if you don't want gastronomic experiments and would rather have a "sure thing" - a 2 piece chicken with rice, fried egg (yup, a Khmer variation of the combo meal) and rice will only cost you $2, the cheapest meal to be had along the touristy Sisowath Quay where I've had dinners at $6, and where my first tuktuk driver took me to a supposedly inexpensive restaurant that had $8 courses (are they friggin' crazy?)

Europe Guest House's amazing location is even bolstered by very comfortable beds, spotless rooms, fragrant smelling bed sheets, new pillows, clean towels; cable TV on LCD screens; rooms that boast of both electric fans and new split-type AC's; dry bathrooms with non-dripping faucets and hot water; and (for my room) a window-balcony. I loved just looking down from my 3rd floor room (well, it's actually the 4th floor), observing the bustle of activity from down below. From where I stood, I could see Street 136 terminate into the Sisowath Quay. In the gradually dimming afternoon light, I marveled at the changing hues illuminating the river. Just beautiful!

ADORABLE HOSTS

The guest house is owned and managed by Mr. Seng and his wife, a Vietnamese-French couple who, some 5 years ago, decided to move to the Khmer capital from Paris. They have been blessed with a lovely daughter named Isabel and another one's coming in the next several months. It was even such a pleasure to meet Seng's parents who's vacationing from Paris. C'est magnifique, indeed!

DISCREPANCY

Though the guest house can offer coffee or tea and some short orders, there's no provision for meals which is fine since restaurants abound in the area, some open as early as 6AM and close in the wee hours. They will arrange airport and bus pick-ups for you - at the lowest possible cost ($2 for bus pick ups, $7 for airport transfers). My airport pick up from Green House cost me $12; my bus transfer cost me $6. Spot the discrepancy? LOL. Europe will also arrange visa requirements for Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

SERVICES

The best part about picking Europe GH (I presume is a homage to their former domicile - France) is Seng, the owner. If you email him tonight, you will get a prompt reply the next day. No anxious waits for confirmations. He will offer you services they can arrange for you (on email), leave you to read them, then you won't ever hear him pitch these packages until you seek his opinion or help! My tuktuk pick-up at the bus terminal (from Siem Reap) for example was a very kind guy named Banh. When my first tuktuk driver didn't show up on time for the city tour I earlier arranged, Seng dealt with the non-English speaking Banh, negotiating for us a ridiculously inexpensive (half-day city tour and airport transfer) rate that saved me some $7-10. I explained my intended itinerary while Seng dictated this to Banh. If that isn't a red carpet service, I don't know what is.

Spotless

The clear thing is, I've found my "permanent" home away from home in Phnom Penh. It's actually one reason why I am already making plans for a future revisit (en route to other places like Battambang, Sihanoukville, etc.)

For those who are interested, this Khmer area also has 2 video shops nearby (your European titles and hard-to-find documentary DVDs can be found there). Best of all, the Phnom Penh Night Market is within the same block, along Sisowath Quay. This night market features a party-like atmosphere, a "tiangge" a la Divisoria; ambulant vendors selling weird fruits, corn on cobs, very sweet lanzones and pungent Durians. At the center of the Night Market sprawl, that happens only on Sunday nights, is a stage where local performers dance the hip hop (if a tad under rehearsed, but a compelling watch nevertheless) of "Back Seat" or Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song".

A room with a magnificent view!

The guest house foyer where you can have your bittersweet coffee.

Mr. Seng and family

Down below are images from my window overlooking Street No. 136 at different times of the day. Phnom Penh names most of their streets in numbers: even numbers for horizontal streets on the map, and odd numbers for vertical. The big streets are named accordingly, i.e. Sisowath Quay, Norodom Avenue, etc.

GETTING ONLINE

What's wanting in the area are internet cafes. There are a couple of internet shops along Sisowath Quay, but they close early - at 10PM. One night, I had to scour the area at past 10. I found one at the Khmer Royal Hotel along the main strip. Though expensive for non-guests, I had to check my mails - to the tune of $2 per hour when the going rate should be $0.75 an hour even in Siem Reap. This is a curiosity. Internet cafes have mushroomed in most places that I've visited in Asia - even in laidback Vang Vieng or Jaisalmer, but in Cambodia, the cafes close down early. And there's not a lot of them around. If you're carrying your laptop around (something I never do), then Europe GH has unlimited wi-fi connection!

REVIEWS

As I am writing this, Europe GH is ranked number 2 (out of 93 guest houses and B&B's in PP) in TripAdvisor's ranking. Moreover, in the French Travel Site, www.routard.com, Europe GH is ranked no. 1 - http://www.routard.com/hotel/cambodge_1_163

Here is Europe GH's address and contact number:

Europe Guesthouse
Nº. 51Eo, Oknha Inn (St. 136) Across Street 13 just one block from the riverside (Sisowath Quay)
12204 Phnom Penh

* Tel 023 6918 883
* HP 092 763 078

Email: europeguesthouse@gmail.com

Check their website for updates and rates: http://europeguesthousepp.com/

Before I left Khmer Royal, the concierge asked me why I didn't stay with them. "We have 24-hour internet, free for our guests", he said. I just smiled. I was quite pleased with my guesthouse. I was in my perfect place. I wouldn't have it any other way.

This is the Eye in the Sky!

From my window, you already see the Tonle Sap ("Great River") and the Sisowath Quay!

Smile Shop, a 24-hour convenience store just across the corner.

Sisowath Quay at dusk. Tranquil river.

Sisowath Quay bathed by the warmth of street lamps.

A favorite place of mine. A small temple facing the river where locals offer tulips, incense, etc.

My tuktuk driver Banh, he with the kindest of faces. Ask Seng to contact Banh for you if you're in the capital. His number is 0975119660. To show me more of the city on my way to the airport, Banh took the elegant streets of PP where tuktuks weren't allowed. Saw pretty parks and majestic buildings. At one point, a policemn tried to stop him, but he just kept on driving. LOL

My tuktuk

Sugarcane juices: quite a popular drink in the country, from PP to Kampong Thom to Siem Reap.

Faces of Death in Phnom Penh & the Deceptive Calm at the Sisowath

Cambodia pilfered by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. This photo courtesy of Dith Pran, 1974.

There is absolutely no getting around a civil war, painful death and genocide. It is merciless, parsimonious, offensive and reeks of demented, delirious, maniacal judgement. Pol Pot's regime - from 1973-1979 - was such! And with no compulsion to airbrush it, I do hope he rots in hell until eternity!

Pol Pot was schooled in Paris, but that doesn't make him an intellectual. After all, there are also idiots in France the same way there are at every nook and cranny in the world. But more importantly, he went to the university and flunked his course three times! If that qualifies him to lead a nation, I should be President of America (remember that George Bush became one) so you would know that the qualifications aren't as rigid.

DECIMATING THE UNPURE

Mr. Pot led a racial cleansing in his deranged Khmer Rouge that killed thousands on his way to insanity. But he was too ashamed of how he looked that he hardly allowed anyone to see him or take his photos. His cleansing started in Phnom Penh, a move that would eventually decimate every structure that represented civilization which, to his mind, was unpure - churches, government dwellings, temples, houses, banks, bridges, concrete roads, then people!

http://www.tuolsleng.com/ - Painful torture and death to everyone. These photos (above and below) only courtesy of the official Tuol Sleng website. Please visit the site for more photos which are on display at S21.

The first time I visited S21, aka Tuol Sleng Prison - a former elementary school turned into a prison - it took me 2 hours to navigate around the actual prison cells. And I couldn't help getting misty eyed. It was a sobering encounter with a not too distant past.

DOCUMENTING DEATH

The prison cells were tight enclosures made of bricks in one floor and wood panels in another. Every part of the capture was documented by the regime - the way the French loved documenting everything! Each prisoner was photographed upon arrival then post-mortem, after they were tortured. Some were even snapped during the whole bludgeoning process of lunacy. No one was spared. Women, even the pregnant ones, children, old people - each one was taken as prisoners. The most spine-tingling accounts came from the survivors - those who eventually made it out simply because there were just too many prisoners. The officers couldn't keep up with the killings as fast as they should.

SURVIVOR

I thought it would be easier this time around, but emotions aren't that easily tutored. I paid the entrance of $2 and noticed that the new entrance was through the compound's right side corner instead of the front gates. There were more tourists this time. But the twilight zone moment came when one lady stood beside one of a prisoner's photograph. I thought I was seeing a ghost! This breathing, living lady was the very same woman on the photo - moments before she was to be executed! It was unnerving! Turned out, a team was doing a documentary.

NEW MANAGEMENT

After Tuol Sleng, our tuktuk driver named Sem, maneuvered his way towards the Killing Fields, aka Cheung Ek Genocidal Museum. It was a 40 minute drizzly ride to the suburbs. There was new gate and ticket office. There's even a new museum at the left side of the compound. It wasn't there three years ago. A Japanese firm has acquired management privileges of the whole compound which explains the new welcome development.

UNMERCY KILLING

The Killing Fields is really just a parcel of land where prisoners from S21 and other prisons were taken for immediate execution - then buried there. They would place loud speakers on trees so as to drown cries of pain. Babies were thrown up the air then bludgeoned with bayonets as they drop down the ground. Those who were too heavy for this were held at their feet then their head were bashed against the trunk of the trees. Such barbaric acts are, to this day, unfathomable. These trees bear witness to an era of unbridled lunacy.

A pagoda stands at the center of the compound bearing skulls of the departed, thousands of them.

BOEUNG KAK - DEATH OF A LAKESIDE

From the Killing Fields, I asked Sem to take me to Boeung Kak, the old backpacker area north of Sisowath Quay. I have always wanted to see this place. Boeung Kak used to host the cheapest guesthouses in Phnom Penh, but many of them - including a number of Lonely Planet-recommended enclaves - have been dismantled. We navigated through an Edsa-like avenue, then turned left through narrow roads. I saw a gleaming mosque until we eventually reached a place I'd be so scared to visit at night. There were still a few guesthouses left, and the smattering of tourists looking as decrepit as the old settlements that now survive there.

The lakeside had this dramatic view. From across the lake, I saw nothing but sand, allegedly laid by the government developers. The whole area would eventually see the rise of tall buildings in the next 5-10 years. To be honest about it, this seems like a great idea. If Phnom Penh needed to catch up with Siem Reap, the planners seem to go about it the right way. The placed looked scary, and between Sisowath Quay and Boeung Kak, it's a no-brainer which one I'd recommend to friends.

From Boeung Kak, all that's left to do was to get back to Sisowath Quay (photo above). It would be sunset by that time. But tomorrow is another day for revisits.

I can't wait.

This is the Eye in the Sky!

Monks crossing the street along Sisowath Quay. This photo only courtesy of www.levke.net.

Phnom Penh Part 3: Walks Along Sisowath Quay and the Tonle Sap

RIVERSIDE SOJOURN

At any time of the day, it's always interesting to walk along the Sisowath Quay, a riverine sidewalk much like London's queen's walk, the banks of the Seine or Manila's Roxas Boulevard. The tourist-friendly stretch comfortably sits along the eastern part of the city, more specifically the southern bend, just facing the Tonle Sap joining the Mekong to form a Y-shape that drains south into theBassac River. As you go north, one gets a view of the Japanese Friendship Bridge that leads to the other side not quite navigated by tourists (but does that stop me?)

It is imperative to orient yourself with the Sisowath, since each side street from there allows faster, easier navigation. This is a most convenient focal area for walkers without guides. The avenue is paved and lined with cream colored street posts that romantically light the avenue at night. Late afternoon winds blow a comfortable waft at the riverside cafes and restaurants. There are concrete barriers – said to be floodgates - constructed above the river serving as convenient benches to watch local color. Several boats are docked below. Just across these concrete benches are rows and rows of motorbikes and tuktuks desperately waiting for tourists.
OF CROCODILES AND SENSATIONAL READINGS

Every so often, touts would offer their vehicles, but I find that a sincere and insistent - not the condescending - "no" usually worked here, unlike their Vietnamese counterparts. Flags from the different countries with diplomatic ties to the country proudly rise above these riverside concretes. As the sun dipped into the horizon, I found myself catching my breath, and taking in the sights before me. From my vantage, simple Khmer life seems idyllic. No trace of the lugubrious crap I’ve been reading in several blogs and personal encounters about Phnom Penh. I couldn't help recall the degree of anxiety I had about this city when I first visited. These were usual concerns, about the corrupt local police, fining commuters with made-up transgressions. Sounds familiar? They aren't completely baseless - but a lot of these anecdotes have been told and retold and blown out of proportion. My driver-guide voiced his displeasure about them, even referring to them as crocodiles (toldya, it sounded familiar). Being aware of such situations helps people avoid getting into the same dilemma.

Circle marks the Japanese Friendship Bridge; X marks the touristy area of the Sisowath Quay near the guesthouses and cafes, B - Bassac River, the confluence of the Tonle Sap and the Mekong. The northwestern body of water is the Boeng Kak Lake where other guesthouses line the lakeside. Quite far from the Sisowath Quay though.

AT HOME

I sat at the riverside for almost an hour, transferring every 15 minutes or so. Sometime after dinner, I realized I was seated beside a flag that looked familiar. Oh yeah, “ang mamatay ng dahil sa yo” (to die for you). LOL. It was nothing less than serendipitous to have unknowingly chosen a spot where my flag stood. It welcomed me - so far away from home.
PHNOM PENH, MADRID AND THE LOONIES

There were several loonies passing along the road, talking to themselves, lost in the jungles of their own consciousness, chatting gibberish. Life in Cambodia is hard, but then I have seen the same phenomenon in Madrid - a city that has some of the highest per capita of loonies roaming their streets. (Madridalso has similar number of "streakers" - fun-loving gentlemen in their trenchcoats with nothing else underneath. LOL)
ALL-DAY FAVORITE

From the tourist area, the southern route takes you to an open grassy field fronting the immense Royal Palace. Right across is a small street-temple facing the river. Ambulant vendors gather around selling foodstuff, incenses, lotuses and trinkets. Further south is a series of buddhist temples that brightly gleam in the daylight. I could stay at the Quay all day if I didn't have an itinerary list to visit. Here are some images from the area, an obvious personal favorite.

Independence Memorial (above and below) commemorates the departure of the French in 1953, located at the heart of the city. Nearby is the mediocre Stalin-style Liberation Memorial, marking the Vietnamese capture of the city in 1979. Although the Cambodians were glad to see the end of the Khmer Rouge, they don't hold their Vietnamese neighbor in high regard either, and have demonstrated this by neglecting these historical landmarks for 2 decades (remember the Marcos head in Baguio?). It was used mainly as a convenient urinal. However, during my visit, much of the monument had already been cordoned off from everyone, locals and foreign tourists alike. I like the intricate Buddhist designs garnishing the structures.

Independence Park

This old lady is a blind vendor (above) selling lotus flowers and incenses for the nearby street-temple (below) by the riverside. I felt a bit guilty taking her photograph so I asked permission and gave her something in exchange for this photo opportunity which she held tightly (see the first photo above). I saw an appreciative smile so that made me feel better.

Tonle Sap boatmen (above) and children (below).

The Grand Palace

Sisowath Quay going north.

Sisowath Quay going south

"Ang mamatay ng dahil sa yo..."


Guess which embassy this is. (above and below) Though it's off Sisowath Quay, I made sure I get to see it. It's 2-3 blocks from the Independence Monument. I walked around the blocks, reaching the park, turning to the opposite side to get to the embassy; this, while my motorcycle waited for 30 minutes - just to orient myself with the place.

Aerial view from the north skies: Tonle Sap (left) and the Boeng Kak Lake (center) can be seen from here.

Sisowath Quay at night, near my DV8 Guesthouse. Cafes, bars, restaurants, a couple of internet cafe, some DVD shops line this avenue.

This is the Eye in the Sky!