DAY OFF @ PHNOM PENH, NATIONAL
MUSEUM
I woke up early and decided to have a day in to rest for the week tomorrow. A kind of Sabbath. I present to you Phnom Penh, the pictures, the people: a Sunday edition.
When walking around Phnom Penh city, they still maintain certain aspects of the country. That includes doing really whatever you want on the side of the street without getting too much side-eye. It does, however, catch my attention. Here, I see some people skinning sugarcane. I ask D while in the car, when passing a sugarcane field, how you know it's ripe. "You look at three things. The color of the stem, the length of it (approximately 2 meters), and also the width."
Along the river, there is an exercise area. I see all kinds of people use it, from aunties to adults to kids. The aunties will use it for exercising, or often just hanging around on, looking towards the river. The adults will be with their partners on it, usually flirting. And the kids use it as a playground.
On a Sunday, many families are out on the riverfront, too.
Not only that, there are loads of families relaxing on the lawns in front of the National Palace. To foreigners this is one of the most well-known tourist attractions, but to the locals they have utilized the park as just another park with a wonderfully designed pagoda-esque structure behind it. Architecturally, it shares the characteristics of the Southeast Asia Buddhist Temple, with the sharp pointed edges, deep sloping rooves, and of course gold-plated everything. I don't know if the coloring scheme of pastel yellow was a result of influence from French colonization. If you look at the coloring between Cambodia and Hoi An, they're quite similar. The pavements connecting through the park also bear a pastel yellow color. Who would have known I would find the yellow brick road in Cambodia.
Tuktuks are the main way to get around. These guys work hard. They're constantly asking tourists if they need a "tuk tuk? tuk tuk?" only to be rejected a lot of the time. Tourists will often hate how much they're touted but hey, they're just doing their job. Despite their tenacity, I manage to catch one off shift.
The national museum is a wonderful structure where the rich history of Khmer culture comes to live. They've managed to preserve artifacts dating back to the early 8th century and show the richness in Khmer literature, Khmer architecture, and contributions to culture in the Southeast Asia region. Althogh Cambodian history is often overshadowed by the recent civil war, it should not displace -- or remove -- the legacy of the Khmer people. I take a few pictures in the museum grounds as the artifacts weren't able to be photogrpahed. In a sense, that's how you know they're old, right?
After leaving the museum and heading back to the hotel, I find a small street by random and it turns out to be a street with a lot of Buddhist monks and this gem of a lady
I stay in the hotel most of the day, only to emerge from my batcave at night. I do another round of photographing at night to try to capture the richness of the people and the City. On my walkabout, I come across the old post office, which also shares the yellow pastel color similar to the National Palace, and other French colonial style buildings. I then stroll by the river again to see what kinds of people are out there that night.
Sunday nighttime is even more tranquil than Saturday, as the people prepare for work the next day. Couples are together peering out into the island directly across the river. A lone man takes a sip of water after strolling around. The river lights up with the reflection from the buildings and the Cambodian style boats that are slowly floating down the lazy Tonle Sap. Even the river seems calm.