Day 17 (15th of Feb)

Day 17 / 15th Feb 2013

Lovely and efficient mode of transport.... Tuk-Tuk

Phnom Penh

It was another 132 km day yesterday, and as it was a free day with only local site seeing to do we lazed a bit, got up late and went out for a breakfast at a corner cafe. Street 278 is like Koregaon Park area in Pune, a typical foreign tourist hang out. We were hungry and even though we had a choice of having south indian breakfast, opted for big continental breakfast which turned out to be not so big but the setting was good and we enjoyed the leisure.

Almost all the hotels were full and we could not get the triple sharing room, so we had taken two rooms which were available for only one night, so we had job of searching for another hotel. Yesterday while crossing a ferry at Neak Loeung, we had met one man who said he is a tuk tuk driver in Phnom phen and had given his cell number. We called him and he appeared in ten minutes flat, so we went for a hotel hunt with him. He took us to street 172, another foreigner hang out. We found a hotel 'Angkor Mithona' , booked a room there, got back to our old hotel, checked out, and went to the new hotel. While going there Rajoo had a minor accident and luckily he did not get hurt but his rear wheel got damaged. As luck goes there was a cycle mechanic bang opposite our hotel, we gave him the wheel and off we went with John, our tuk tuk driver for a city tour.

The first destination was killing fields of Pol Pot, a former Khmer Rouge chief, famous for his atrocities and responsible for wiping out estimated 30,00,000 people including children and women, just in a span of 4 years between 1974 and 1978 in most inhuman ways possible. The virtual guided tour of killing fields assisted by recorded commentary was very effective, which deeply moved us from within.

We got out in a pensive mood and drove towards the city. Our driver took us to the Tuk Tuk Cafe for lunch. The mood changed there with pleasant ambiance and as we met a Gujrati- English fellow who met us earlier at Dalat in Vietnam. He was surprised to see us catching up with him in the same time as he did even by riding our bikes. He had earlier seen us riding to Cu Chii tunnels as well and had tried to wave to us. He was impressed with our speed and so we were as it hit us that we really had' done a long distance in a short span and that too without missing any site seeing :-) :-) :-)

Our next stop was a Pagoda on top of the only hill named Wat Phnom. Then we rushed to the Royal Palace. Unfortunately they had closed it for a day before the usual closeing time of 5 pm. So we went to the National Museum which was next to the palace. The museum building was impressive so were the articles displayed. This museum was built by French in 1920, and most of the articles displayed were from 7th to 9th century - pre Angkor period, 11th and 12th century - Angkor period and from modern period. Most of the statues were of Hindu Gods such as Bramha, Shiva- Parvati, Ganpati, Laxmi, Hanuman even Kartik swami and from Hindu mythology such as Pandawas and Kauravas and from Ramayana.

After museum we returned to our hotel said good bye to John our tuk tuk diver. The cycle mechanic had done his job, he had repaired the wheel and had fitted it to the cycle. We met a cyclist from Norway, who was looking for bus to go to Thailand border but no bus company was ready to take him with the cycle. In the morning when me and Dipankar had gone for hotel hunt, Rajoo had booked us on Phnom Phen Sourya Transport Company bus to Seam Reap, they had accepted to take our cycles at an extra cost of $ 5. We told him so. We had to collect our laundry from our old hotel, so me (kedar) and Rajoo went to collect our laundry.

Later on went out for food, had ice cream and I returned to our hotel to get on with blog writing and Dipankar and Rajoo went to net cafe to post previous blog and to take massage. Let's know about it from them...

Well it was very good authentic massage... we were looking for a good traditional massage, no hanky-panky and so it was....Me n Dipankar were side by side, really felt relaxed and sleepy. The big westerner next to us had actully fallen asleep and was snoring during massage.

We went back to the hotel, arranged for the watchman to keep the cycles inside for the night. I took one shot of Jamaican Rum :-) . We were to leave at 6 next morning to catch a bus to Siem Reap.