Discovering Cambodia’s capital

Wat Langka

On my first day in Phnom Penh, I slept until 10 am, as I was really exhausted after my very early 14h long bus ride from Bangkok the day before.  I had some breakfast at the hotel, took a shower and felt fit enough to make a big walk through the city (14km).  When I arrived at Phnom Penh yesterday, I noticed that it was very different from the rest of the country.  It actually looked more prosperous: the roads leading up to the city suddenly became highways with 2 lanes in each direction, shops were better equipped, there was less visible poverty, …

Independence Monument

I started my walk at the Independence Monument and the nearby Wat Langka. Wat Langka is a Buddhist temple where tourists can train in the art of meditation. This is only on certain days of the week and it happened to be just those days of the week I wasn’t in Phnom Penh.  There wasn’t actually much more to see as in any other Buddhist temple, so I walked on to the Independence Monument and the statue of King Sihanouk. I noticed that the independence monument is not aligned straight with the square where King Sihanouk’s memorial is placed. Is there a reason for this (no straight-forward democracy for example), or is it a coincidence? Maybe Cambodian history can teach me!

Memorial of King Sihanouk

Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship monument

I continued my walk via the revolutionary styled Cambodia-Vietnam friendship monument, taking a look inside the nearby Wat Botum and arriving at the Royal Palace... which was closed at that moment.  I decided to visit it later and continued my city discovery.  Walking through the streets of Phnom Penh, you can clearly see that the French have been here before, just like in Vietnam baguettes are sold everywhere on the street: filled with eggs, vegetables and/or meat.  My walk continued via Wat Ounalom (the name reminds me of a James Bond villain in 'The Golden Eye'), which is the temple where the leading monk of Cambodian Buddhism resides.  This importance reflects clearly in the even bigger than usual overdose of gold used in this temple.

Wat Botum

Wat Ounalom

The riverwalk next to the Tonlé Sap

The next stop was another temple, Wat Phnom, located on an artificial hill in the middle of a roundabout.  I arrived there by following the board walk next to the Tonlé Sap river.  From here I had a clear view on the confluence of the Tonlé Sap and Mekong.  I wonder if Mekong doesn't mean something like 'mother river', mee meaning mother and khlon meaning canal/waterway in Thai.  Wat Phnom is located in the middle of a roundabout in a city full of noisy traffic, thus you would expect not to find any peace nor tranquility in this place.  But guess again, the trees surrounding the hill effectively stopped noise from going up.  When you get to the end of the stairs leading to the top of the small hill, you don’t hear any city noises anymore.  The temple had some nice Buddha statues and behind the temple building, a monk was giving advice to locals.

Wat Phnom

After a short meditation session at the temple, I descended back to the ground and started walking back towards my hotel.  Phnom Penh actually is a very busy city and walking around isn’t easy.  Sidewalks are in bad shape and cars are parked all over them.  At every corner of the street a tuk-tuk driver is waiting and offering you his services (sometimes in a rather aggressive way).  Traffic in the street just doesn’t seem to follow any logical flow or rule.  But then I saw a building behind which I knew for sure a straight, logical traffic flow would exist, no chaos but good organisation: the train station.

Train station

The train station has been built by the French and that is clearly noticeable in its colonial style.  It is a quite simple white functional building and when I got to the platform behind it, it reminded me a lot of the now defunct train station of Tirana (Albania).  Trains only run a few times per week, so I got the chance to thoroughly examine the rolling stock.  The Cambodian railway company is called Royal Railway, in honour of their king.  They’ve got fairly modern renovated passenger coaches and their locomotives operate on diesel.  While I was examining the rolling stock parked at the platform, my attention was suddenly drawn away by something that was standing near the staff parking: there was a very beautiful steam locomotive, built by the Société Franco-Belge (aka a Belgian-made locomotive, because Franco-Belge mostly means 10 French guys looking how 1 Belgian builds it).  After spending quite some time here, I returned to the hotel and freshened up for my Cambodian dinner.

Carriages

Diesel locomotive

Old steam-locomotive