Phnom Penh

To try to find out a bit more about Phnom Penh and Cambodia as a whole I downloaded on Kindle a book by Henry Kamm the one time New York Times correspondent for South East Asia called simply Cambodia. It is pretty depressing reading I have to say. Basically the people of Cambodia have been let down by the people they elected to govern them, by the people they didn’t but who seized power, by a royal Prince who got into bed with anyone that might keep him in power and by the United Nations who were so busy trying to appease everyone they forgot they were there to protect the people. One amazing statistic if you need to know the suffering of ordinary people is that in 1970 Phnom Penh had a population of 470,000 people and by 1978 it had a population of just 32,000 souls. Pol Pot had seen to that and oh yes the Prince was in bed with him too.

It now has a population of some 2.2 million people and we went out in a Tuk Tuk to have a look at the place. The real purpose was to go shopping ‘cos everyone says clothes are amazingly cheap here.

The lad who had driven us to our restaurant the night before seemed nice and he had fitted wire mesh to the sides of his tuk tuk, the first one to do this modification so we asked him to do the 3 hour trip.

Apart from snatching from pedestrians the easiest way for a pillion rider on a motor bike to grab an handbag or package is to ride up alongside a Tuk Tuk reach in and grab it. The wire mesh you see prevents that. Very clever isn’t it ?

The Phnom Penh Tuk Tuks are more chariot in design with the bike being the horse.

We set off at a very leisurely pace, these guys all seem to conserve fuel by going slowly.

We drove all along the Quay side by the river. This area is just packed with restaurants and bars and great in the evening. I found a French place selling draught Angkor beer for US$0.50 cents a pint now that’s a real bargain.

First stop The Royal Palace , no not a pub, keep up , the real thing.

In my youth I dated for a time Lady Patricia Pelham Clinton Hope the Duke of Newcastle’s daughter. When phoning her one time from a pay phone near school I realised I had left her number back at the house. I called the operator and asked for the number of The Duke of Newcastle in Warminster. After a few minutes she came back and said I’ve got a White Swan and The Kings Head but no Duke of Newcastle. Again I had to say not the pub the person !

 

it isn’t actually the Royal Palace it is the gate into it, but the place closes for lunch for 3 hours and we couldn’t wait. Onwards ever onwards

 

Now this is a statue of a professor who taught culture and was much revered by the people as he wrote many books about Cambodian culture. Instead of fleeing he stayed with his people and was murdered by Pol Pot.

On then to the Freedom Monument

 

Most things in Phnom Penh are very new. Pol Pot pretty well raised the place to the ground as he wanted a society of agricultural workers not city folk.. The rebuilding did keep most of the French big boulevards which is good and every roundabout seems to have a statue on it.They even have a kind of London Eye as well.

 

Once in the old town though the wide roads disappear and the traffic turns ugly

 

We hit the Russian Market so called because after the Vietnamese invaded in 1979 to oust Pol Pot the market only stocked Russian goods. It took Gorbachev in 1985 who cut off aid to Vietnam to change all that and the Vietnamese quickly upped sticks and left.

To be honest whilst the guide books all say it is the best for bargains almost all of it was the same stuff and no one really wanted to haggle or if they did it was to knock a dollar off perhaps. Try for more and they just looked disinterested and withdrew the goods. No fun at all  as I love a good haggle.

After 2 hours driving around we hit the Central Market and whilst again not much haggling they did try to sell stuff and there was a load more choice and thousands of fake watches as well as clothes.

 

It was built in 1930 by the French in an art deco style and is huge inside.

Phnom Penh is a lovely city and I would certainly come back to it again . Mind you the Raffles really does help you enjoy it.

 

I gave our driver a big hug of thanks but he actually wanted US$15 as well. After 3 hours driving in that traffic he deserved it.

Now it’s back to Saigon and the Tet New Year festival .Flowers and fireworks are on the menu now.

Raffles Amid the Protests

On Jan 4th the ruling party here banned all form of street protests and gatherings. But yesterday protesters took to the streets to protest the turning down of a licence for a non government radio and TV station.

The locals like in Vietnam take their lunch around 11a.m. so the protest came past Raffles at about 10 a.m. on it’s way to the Ministry of Information almost next door.

We were on the breakfast veranda overlooking the street 

As you would expect the breakfast is huge with table after table of different choices and the customary profusion of waiters and waitresses.

As we sat enjoying the meal an hail of gunfire broke out and the protesters started to run back past us. The military police had opened fire on the crowd using rubber bullets, smoke bombs and some tear gas. They then baton charged them to disperse the protest.Several people were injured and many bloodied

It reminded me of  that part of the book Doctor Zhivargo as the elite danced at a ball while the cossacks charged the protesters. Here are the clips

and

We were part of the elite this morning tucking in to hearty breakfasts while just 200 metres away peaceful protesters were being beaten with sticks and riot shields. I don’t know enough yet about the politics of the country to start to understand it but maybe I won’t moan about the BBC Today programme quite as much when back in the UK or the simplistic Italian TV fare dished up over non state controlled airwaves. Mind you James Naughtie ….no don’t get me started.

The baton charge coincided with a report published by the US Freedom House which ranked Cambodia as “not free” one of 48 countries in that category. The report cites that here ” basic political rights are absent” and ” basic civil liberties are widely and systematically denied “. It talks also of the ban on the right to assemble and a suppression of human rights since the disputed general election last year.

But enough of politics let’s take our usual wander around this holel the way we have the others.

The Raffles boasts two pools. This is what they call the play pool

That side of the play pool in the picture is always in the shade and the other side in the sun. Now that is service !!

This is the main pool

oh and the view from the bed chair

Our bedroom overlooks the play pool and has a pleasant balcony almost at pool level.

You have already seen the view from the breakfast table up the top of this blog .

One thing I must show you is the turndown service that happens every night. Now I am old enough to remember when even in European hotels this service was the normal part of staying in an hotel. These days few even in the Far East offer the service at all but it is a Raffles tradition

Not only is the bed turned down and the towels used for your evening shower replaced but slippers are laid out by the bed, a bottle of water and a glass placed on your bedside table, the room cleaned again, the bathroom completely wiped down, any clothes you left lying around hung up or folded neatly, the desk rearranged tidily and of course your PJs folded and laid on the bed. The bedside lights only are left on to make it really cosy when you stagger in from a night on the huge cocktails in the Elephant Bar.

Ahh the Elephant Bar so called because of the wall and ceiling paintings of elephants

and home to a long list of celebrities including Jackie O and Somerset Maugham .

The place is now crawling with NGO personnel who seem the mainstay of the economy as almost every charity seems to be present here in Cambodia. Not only do they drink here but many apparently live in this hotel as well.

I was in Sri Lanka just after the tsunami  and was also amazed there to find the Hilton Club floors in Colombo full of NGOs living the high life . I asked one why he wasn’t at “the front line” as it were where all the trouble was down on the south of the island. “Have you been there?” he asked, “no where decent to stay and no good bars either.”

This seems very similar . It is big business now the charity game with lots of various national government monies flowing into them making them political as well as charitable schemes.

My trusty Luxe Travel Guide to Cambodia tells me of the Elephant Bar is ” more NGO than Jackie O ” which is rather clever and also very true. Her glass still with her lipstick, does adorn a glass cabinet just outside the bar. ,

In my youth I drank in various great hotel bars like the Long Bar in the old Raffles in Singapore where the Singapore Sling was born, the Long Bar at the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi which was already truncated from it’s original and now sadly gone and the rooftop bar at The Acropole Palace in Athens . I loved the feel of those places. Most great hotel bars are now priced way above what I am prepared to pay for a drink I can get outside for well under half the price. So it is nice to be back at one that certainly in happy hour is very affordable with beers at US$3, house cocktails at US$4 and special cocktails at US$ 6 and they come with three different snacks as well.  That said I’m not sure I’d be too happy funding such prices from my own charity donation nor have my tax money paid by my government  to a charity  that was happy to have its people expense it for entertaining or worse still stay at the hotel and charge it to the charity.

Last night we listened while a few NGO types moaned into their cocktails about the unfairness of their lot when diplomats got more leave per annum than them and more flights home each year as well. I guess join the elite few who pass the Civil Service Exams in the UK and change jobs would be my advice !!