It was a little ways after lunch when we made the drive to Cheung Ek, so before continuing on with the afternoon half of our tour, we stopped by for lunch at a restaurant conveniently placed across the compound.
Upon entering Cheung Ek (better known as The Killing Fields), Mr. Sean gave us a brief but solemn rundown on how the Khmer Rouge went about before we paid our respects to the victims of such a harrowing event in history.
You get to offer a couple of flowers and incense for $1/person
This memorial was built to house the remains of the victims, and we later find out during the video showing that they are even arranged in a certain way.
Video showing every 15 minutes
After that, Mr. Sean led us down the fields and pointed out the numerous mounds that used to house the bodies of the victims before they were discovered and given a proper place of memorial.
Prayers for the infants and children who didn't deserve such a cruel end.
And if you think The Killing Fields was a place of gloom, wait till you've been to Tuol Sleng, or better known as The Genocide Museum.
These barbs aren't for keeping people out, they were used to keep them in.
At least the memorial in Cheung Ek provided a sense of peace for the victims by giving them a proper resting place, Tuol Sleng however were corridors of endless horror and torture.
Something about this place just gave me the creeps, and maybe it mostly had a lot to do with the bloodstains they couldn't quite get off the floors and walls of the rooms.
They used to have this open for the public to leave behind messages.
I was able to breath easier after leaving that place, and once we got back at our hotel, we had an early dinner before we got the chance to enjoy the hotel's jacuzzi!
Sunset Sky
Dinner beneath the fairy lights
Mom and her salad (Chicken Caesar)
Missing the Pumpkin Soup back home #MaryGraceCafeplease
Just the average plain ol' spaghetti
R&R Time!
Did I mention they also have saunas here..?
Nightcap!
Stay tuned for the next post as we have an early start on the day before we leave for Siem Reap. Angkor Wat, here we come!
On our second day in Phnom Penh, we're expecting to visit alot of the places indicated in our itinerary, we also had a different guide for the day named Mr. Sean. But first things first, breakfast!
Our first dip out in the morning sun was the Independence Monument, which was located near this really huge park where people could enjoy some early morning exercise. It was nice that they still had places like these in the city, 'cuz back in Manila, we were too congested to even have simple privileges like this.
For our next stop, which I really wanted to see in person because all the picture I saw online were really beautiful, was the Royal Palace!
Gates to the Royal Palace
It was magnificent seeing it up close! Everything just seemed to glimmer under the sun (as you can see in the pictures). It was too bad though that you couldn't take pictures of some of the inside places, but I understand their need for privacy (and protection), although we did get to take pictures inside the palace museum and imagine my surprise when I saw this:
Lucky colors for the day, starting from Sunday [leftmost] to Saturday [rightmost]
That's the museum on the right
There was more to see inside the royal complex, so we were next headed to the Silver Pagoda, taking pictures along the way:
Mr. Sean insisted we pose near this gateway...
The hallways surrounding the Silver Pagoda were painted in what looked to be like a storybook with a couple of stupas (where they housed the ashes of loved ones long passed) placed around the quad. But what really got me curious was that the Silver Pagoda wasn't really silver at all (not on the outside anyway)...
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it turns out the pagoda got its name since the floor inside was made out of silver! After getting a glimpse of the old coins that Cambodia used to have, we rounded the pagoda outside and found a miniature version of the Angkor Wat:
Getting excited for our Angkor Wat tour in a couple of days!
Nearing the end of our tour in the Royal Palace, we still got to take more pictures of the smaller exhibits near the exit:
Talk about being the elephant in the room...
Free water by the exit gate! #souvenir
Passing along the Tonle Sap Rivers, we next had a short but meaningful stop at Wat Unalom Pagoda, where we even got blessed by a monk just before they took a short break for lunch. Curiously, Mr. Sean even introduced to us what looked like their form of fortune-telling:
See that "pendulum" at the end of the red string? You have to like insert it between the cards while it's on your head
The National Museum was next, but Mr. Sean left us on our own then, saying that the museum had guides of their own and we could rent them. Fascinatingly, the guides he was talking about were audio headsets that you could rent for $5/pax. We didn't quite have those back in the Philippines yet, but we also didn't get our own here, since I personally preferred not having a voice talking in my head while I roamed around new places; Still I found it entertaining to see people staring intensely at a piece of art, probably thinking it had all the answers to their questions (and maybe, the audio did)..
Picture-taking wasn't exactly allowed (even though some of the other tourists did just that), so I wasn't able to document how this lady inside the museum handed us a couple of flowers to offer to Buddha, and if you give her a dollar (or two in our case) in return, she would also do this chanting stuff and tie a red string around your wrist:
I still have it with me, even though I didn't exactly know what it was she said that time...
All the walking we've been doing since that morning caught up with us, so we opted to sit down near the museum's gardens (where picture-taking was allowed), and bought coke and well, a couple of Angkor Beers (which we later consumed back in our hotel room).
Just before we left, we noticed that aside from postcards, the museum was also selling postage stamps! Mom wanted to send one out from each city we'd be passing, but worried that the Phnom Penh Post Office would be closed since we arrived during the weekends. Luckily, Mr. Sean was kind enough to assist us in dropping off mom's postcard.
That is not where you drop off your mail...
This is where!
No Posts on Sundays
And that was just the morning half of our day before we made the drive for lunch near the place of our next itinerary. P.S. my next post may not be for the weak of hearts.
