Phnom Penh

After various boats and buses coming from the Mekong Delta, I finally arrived in Phnom Penh (Cambodia). It was late at night so I was very interested in finding my guesthouse having some dinner and going to sleep. I found this interesting place called the Top Banana Guesthouse on one of the websites that reviews SE Asia. It worked out to be perfect, very chill vibe with a little meeting area for the visitors to come and chat with each other. Conversations usually revolve around where you've been where you are going and where you're from...and of course since I'm American, "Aren't you glad you have Obama now". As always, I like to rate a place on it's food...top notch! I ended up staying up a bit longer than expected as I started talking to some really interesting people (and one of my first Americans along the way...sometimes it's nice to catch up with the fellow citizens). After a nice night of food, drinks, and some laughs, I woke up the next morning ready to see the sights. Off I went to see the capital city including sights of the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, the National Museum, a stroll down the riverfront, and I concluded my day with a documentary about Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge regime. I'm not much of a history buff so I needed to do a little preparation before my sights tomorrow of the Killing Fields and S-21 (Genocide Museum). It was informative but of course nothing can really prepare you to see locations where there were mass murders taking place. I couldn't help but draw comparisons to when I was in Poland visiting the concentration camp remains. Extremely moving and to think we still haven't learned as this continues to go on today.

Phnom Penh is an interesting city with complete extremes of rich and poor, ancient temples and modern cars (they love the Lexus SVU here and as if it wasn't clear it is a Lexus they put a huge decal on the side so you are well aware it is before it comes barreling into you).

http://picasaweb.google.com/lturnof/PhnomPenh#