Day 49 - City Tour around Phnom Penh

Today we had a reasonable start time for a change at 9am. It was best not to start too late as we have learned that this is the hottest time of the year (right before rainy season), so it gets steamy very quickly. We had a few more sites to see in Phnom Pehn including the main temple of the city - Wat Phnom. The wat (and the city) is named after an old lady named Pehn from the 1300s. The legend says she found a floating tree in the river that had bronze buddha statues inside. It was deemed that this discovery meant good luck. The lady asked the villagers to build a temple to house the statues (which they did) believing the statues would shed good luck across the village. A man-made hill (or Phnom) was first built to avoid any floods and the temple was built on top. It has since been rebuilt into an impressive structure and a statue of Lady Penh rests inside the temple as a tribute to her as do the ashes of one of Cambodia's kings in the impressive Stupa on top. To this day, people still pray to Penh and bring her offerings (food, jewelry, money, flowers etc.) in hopes they will receive good luck in return. Sadly, the 4 buddhas have since been pillaged during the various civil wars and their locations are unknown at this time.

The first three pictures below are decorative structures that lead up to the temple:

Photo #1 below is a picture of the Wat Phnom and Photo #2 is a view of the interior. Photo#3 is a tree that is just outside the temple that you can see was covered in hundreds of objects. Was it the tree's fruit? Nope, it was hundreds of fruit BATS!

Our next stop was at The National Museum which houses one of the world's largest collections of Khmer art including Khmer ceramics, statues and wall carvings. Its collection includes over 14,000 items, from prehistoric times to periods before, during and after the Khmer Empire which at its height stretched from Thailand, across present-day Cambodia, to southern Vietnam.

Like the stolen buddhas mentioned above, Cambodia has had a tremendous amount of treasured art stolen throughout the wars. There was a special exhibit in the museum that discussed how they have made some effort in getting the art returned but it has made its way to both museums as well as private collections around the world, so it has been a very slow process. It is likely much of the art will never be returned.

Our final stop was at the Phnom Penh market. It was getting pretty hot but luckily it was indoors in an interesting domed building. No AC but still cooler than outside! It had the usual offerings of souvenirs, clothing, jewelry and strange/interesting food both raw and cooked and in some cases still alive!

So today is actually our last touring day of our trip! To be honest, knowing our touring days were coming to a close and dealing with the heat lately we are ready to be done. We've seen a LOT of temples! Tomorrow, we are looking forward to heading south to the coastline and we will have a 5-day retreat on the ocean with no agenda! We promise to send a post tomorrow but that might be our last one until we get to Hong Kong (next Thursday).

Cambodia Fun Facts:

• ATMs deliver either Riel or US dollars and most people seem to prefer the dollar for any purchases given the lack of stability of their currency.

• Apparently in Cambodia when you get a massage you need to pay extra if you want AC!