Day 214 - Monuments and Museums

Today we decided to experience the brighter side of Phnom Penh. We started the day at the symbol of the city, Wat Phnom. Legend has it that a lady named Penh found 4 Buddhas washed up on the banks of the Mekong, and housed them on a hill near where she found them. The town the grew up around that hill became Phnom Penh - literally, The Hill of Penh.

Today, a simple Wat and a few stupas adorn the 27m high hill. One stupa also seemed to be home to a friendly butterfly that fluttered around and around the point, landing occasionaly nearby, and once even on my shoulder. The wat itself is very popular with students who come to pray for good grades on their exams. If they do get good marks, they return to make offerings of banannas and flowers. The offerings are much appreciated by the troupe of plump monkeys that gambol around the hill.

The hill is also home to many entrepeneurial vendors selling everything from incence for the Buddha to pickled mangos, to small birds. One purchases a bird to free it from its cage, but word has it that the birds are trained to return to the cages after liberation. Also abundant on the hill are the naked children of the vendors. They squeal, run about, and spray each other with the hoses intended to water the trees and grass of the monuments. Very cute.

From Wat Phnom, we opted to walk down the waterfront to the Royal Palace and National Museum. The riverfront is a bustling center with upmarket hotels, retaurants, and vestiges of French colonial architecture.

Wat Ounalum is tucked discreetly between the shopping area and the National Museum/Royal Palace complex. During the Khmer Rouge all of its Buddhas were therown in the Mekong or smashed. In the eighties, they were hauled out and restored - go Buddha! Anyway, when we arrived, the place was locked, and we feared that we had stumbled into a private area. Soon though, an old man came around the corner with a ring of keys and unlocked the door. The main Buddha supposedly contains an eyelash of Bhudda himself. We lit incense before that statue, and were blessed with jasmine-infused holy water.

When we arrived at The Royal Palce, it too was locked up tight. Turns out the guards lock up from 11-2 for lunch and siesta. While we decided what to do while we waited, a girl selling water came over to chat with us. She made a very persuasive argument, and we promised to buy a bottle when we returned.

The National Museum is a beautiful building with French Indochine architecture. It houses several sculptures and artifacts from Pre-Angkor Cambodia on. Best of all were the 'room o' Buddhas' and the fishponds in the courtyard. True to form, we were more excited about feeding the fish than about the exhibits.

We finished the museum at almost exactly two, and wandered back over to the now-open palace. Stuck off the end of one building in the courtyard was an incongruous, lacy white building, The Pavilion of Napoleon III. Oh, those wacky French.

The complex's claim to fame is the Silver Pagoda, which is not actually silver at all. It is so named because of its floor of several thousand silver tiles, each weighing over 1kilo. The Khmer Rouge claimed to leave the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda intact to show their respect for Cambodia's history and culture. That said, much was still stolen or lost during their regime.

When we left the palce grounds, it was late afternoon, and consequently much cooler with nice, slanting light. We walked slowly home on the mercifully logical, gridded streets. Never again will I take for granted logical city planning!

Tommorrow morning, we depart for Kratie, then wilds of Laos. As stated in the update, don't worry if you don't here from us for a while. Computers are thin on the ground up there from what I hear.