Beginning in 1870, the French colonialists started turning the riverside village into a modern city by building hotels, schools, banks, and other facilities needed to support their growing settlement. They began building concrete houses and apartment buildings in 1872 to rent to the Chinese traders.
During the Vietnam war, Cambodia was used as a base for the North Vietnamese army and the Vietnam Cong forcing thousands of refugees to flock to the city to escape the fighting. Another violent era happened in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge captured the city and forced a total evacuation. I will cover the war effects on the city in a separate post.
Tuesday - Dec. 1
After our short flight from Vientiane, Laos we visited an arts academy where students study drawing, music, and dance. The students shared a couple of traditional dances with us.
After showing us some of the dances, they asked for volunteers to come up and try. Guess who went?
They helped me put on a traditional dance wrap which was a long piece of material that is pulled out front then folded back to the belly where it is tied. Then you tuck the material back between your legs and tie a sash around your waist to hold the "tail" making baggy pants. I didn't get the rhythm part of the dance down but had a lot of fun learning the different hand gestures.
We also visited the art and music studios.
This is some of the old concrete buildings. They are deteriorating and now house some of the very low-income.
Later that night we went out for dinner and walked along the river park. There were various food vendors set up and I had a chance to sample some of the local delicacies. Are you ready???
Starting on the top row left they had: River snake on a skewer, giant water bugs, tarantula spiders, silk worms, and prawns. The next row down: baby quail, not sure what this was???, and grass hoppers.
The bottom row: tiny frogs, and crickets. The larger pan in the middle was a different way of preparing grasshoppers.
Any guesses on what I tried?
Fried grasshopper. It was crunchy and really didn't taste bad. It had a grilled like flavor. The little feelers in front kinda tickled my lips going in but other than that it was a great experience.
Wednesday - Dec. 2
This morning we visited the Royal Palace. It serves as the residence of the Cambodian King and was built in the 1860's. This is the throne hall.
Entry gate
Of course the grounds and gardens were impeccable.
In the Buddhist beliefs, color is used to denote different things. Here are the colors of the different days of the week starting with red for Sunday on the far left.
Here are shots of some of the other buildings.
The dance pavilion
The actual residence hall
The Royal seal
Temple holding the Buddha
Stupa holding the remains of a young princess.
A military Statue in a downtown park
A Shot of the victory gate when the country gained their independence from France.
The middle of the day we visited sites concerning the genocide executed by Pol Pot in 1975 - 1979. I will do a separate post as the horrifying facts can be upsetting.
To end the day on a much needed relaxing night out we went to the Elephant Bar at Raffles Hotel for happy hour drinks. Raffles was known as the Le Royal and was popular with famous travelers like Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Kennedy, and was the last refuge for foreign journalist before the Khmer rouge forces took over Phnom Penh in 1975.
We then went to the Foreign Correspondents Club for dinner. A lot of historic events were written about by journalist who would hang out at the bar.
We next fly to Siemens Reap, Cambodia to visit an area that I have long wanted to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment