Saturday, May 31, 2014

Site Seeing

So yesterday (Saturday May 31) another Chapman Law student who is out here interning as well, Hamza, met up with Anna and I to spend the day exploring Phnom Penh.  

Psar Tol Tom Poung (Russian Market): We decided to go to Russian market which is this huge indoor market near where I live where they sell everything from knock off Long Champs for $5 to meat that was mooing about an hour before.  It is a pretty insane place.  EVERYONE is trying to sell you something and its a total bargaining game.  They tell you a price, you offer half, they go down, you go up, you decide its not a good enough deal and walk away, they drop even lower as you walk away and you get an awesome deal.  Its extremely fun, overwhelming, and stinky all at once.  We all ended up with some awesome new sunglasses and a new appreciation for fresh air.


Recycling, Compost and Trash cans!!

Royal Palace, National Museum, Friendship Monument, and the Riverside: We decided to go see some of the fun, fancy, shiny historical buildings. In Cambodia if you are doing anything traditional in any way, or are at work or anything like that you must have your knees and shoulders covered and unfortunately Anna's shorts weren't long enough so we didn't go into any of the buildings but we did get to look at them in awe.  All of them have such incredible detail, and vibrant colors.  You can feel the history that happened there, its a weird and heavy feeling, something that I never felt at American monuments. While we were out I experienced my first rain of the trip.  While we were walking from the national museum to the Royal Palace the skies just opened up and it started to rain.  We found shelter in a bar/restaurant along the river and took advantage of cold beer, water, and free wifi. Once the rain stopped we continued our walking tour of the historic sites in the extreme heat.


Beers on the river
 Royal Palace
 Anna and I at the Royal Palace


 Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship statute

I cannot wait to see more of the epic history that this country has to share in the upcoming months and am eternally grateful for all of the people that made this opportunity possible.

xoxo