Doing the van pickups around Kratie, I suddenly realised the houses had changed, like we’d hit the Kensington and Chelsea of Cambodia:
But the next house was the usual wooden shack. It seems you buy a plot here and construct whatever house you can afford.
I like travelling by van as it gives a real taste of Cambodian life. There are usually just one or two westerners in a van of <insert number of tickets sold>, but today there were only five other passengers. And if you flew everywhere, you’d miss stuff like this:
I’d noticed that the pilot of the dolphin boat in Kratie had long fingernails. Really long fingernails. Apparently, he’s a classical guitarist… but that didn’t explain the long fingernails on his left hand. Surely they’d make it impossible to play? And then, in the van to Phnom Penh (PP), I spied this:
… and wondered if long fingernails were a sign of status, to show that you didn’t have a manual job. Bit difficult to verify this, but since then I’ve noticed quite a few men with extraordinarily long fingernails. Just an observation.
Phnom Penh is different to the other parts of Cambodia I’ve seen. As we approached the city, it became more industrial and whilst there were the same dusty streets with shacks, the shacks were now made of concrete and corrugated metal rather than wood. And the roads are sealed, whereas most other places they’re mostly dirt tracks, especially off the main drag. It gives a completely different feel to the place, without much changing. Same, but different.
One flower a day, which blooms and falls.
That’s the “canonball tree”, with branches that resemble creepers. Totally irrelevant to the Royal Palace, but an interesting introduction, followed up by the “travellers’ palm”:
Whichever way you plant the seed, it’ll align itself to north and south. I wondered whether the Angkorians could have done with that when building their temples.
And so to the palace.
The current king is a Buddhist monk, so is unmarried. When he dies, the council will select a new king from those with royal blood. None of this birth order stuff – they just select who they think will be the best person for the job, I suppose. Bit like choosing the Pope.
Remember King J7? He was the last great (and benevolent) king who united the country through religious tolerance. Apparently, he is often sculpted with no arms:
… the reason being that the statusefound of him had lost its arms so we don’t know what position they were in. To avoid getting it wrong, he’s now always shown armless.
Inside the temple (photos not allowed), there is a Buddha made of 90kg of gold and 2086 diamonds. And the floor is made from over 5,000 solid silver tiles, each weighing 1.25t. This is not the amazing thing. The amazing thing is that there is absolutely no security. Nada. The floor is just covered by a rug, and the Buddha is in a glass case in the middle of the temple. Everyone looks but doesn’t touch. Furthermore (that’s one of my favourite words, btw), the emerald Buddha who is the main event (I told you they’re free with their iconography) is the largest emerald in the world (according to our guide). And he has even less security – not even a glass case. It’s just there, admittedly quite high up, and you’d have to get through all the stuff below him, but still… The only time things have been stolen is during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, but we’ll get to that another day.
Surprisingly, I found the costume bit quite interesting. For instance, there is a different colour for each day of the week. I visited on a Friday, so many of the guides were wearing blue shirts. If you get married on a Saturday, you’ll wear dark red, but on a Monday and you’ll wear yellow. Wedding garb looked very elegant:
… although the bride will get through 14 or 15 costumes during the 2-day ceremony.
The buildings themselves were pretty impressive:
… but the same couldn’t be said for the ground around the complex which showed a decided lack of elegance and imagination:
And here’s another scale model of Angkor Wat – I think they might be a bit proud of it!
And, luckily, the toilets had instructions so I avoided a potentially embarrassing situation:
Then back to my “hotel”. It’s a complete dive. I’ve never been in a prison cell, but I suspect that it’s not much different – small space, no fresh air, no windows. So I’ve splashed out an extra £4 per night in the hope that I’ll get a room without exposed electrics in the wet room. Just call me flashy 🙂