Phnom Penh is Cambodia's capital. A big city filled with Tuk Tuks, cars and mostly motorcycles. The traffic here is crazy, but somehow everyone seems to know what they're doing. Crossing the street feels like a death sentence, but if you hold your breath and just go for it somehow you make it to the other side unharmed.
Streets here are numbered, although sometimes looking at a map the numbers don't make sense. We stayed on 172 street for a few nights. This is a street filled with hotels, cheap restaurants and walking distance to the busy river front street (where we spent a lot of our time).
On our second trip to Phnom Penh we went to the war museum. Before coming to this part of the world I didn't even know a lot of what had gone on here. In the 70s Cambodia went through a horrible war and genocide. A museum in Phnom Penh was a famous war/slave camp of the time. Originally a high school, it was turned into a place of torture. It was sad and felt haunted. After reading the book, First They Killed My Father, I was glad to have some knowledge of this tragedy that happened only a few years ago.
Because it was so hot outside, we thought it might be a good idea to see if there were any movies we could see. Conor found this place called, Flicks. Flicks was a small co-op place, a room with a screen attached to a computer, a few comfy lounge pillows and seats. They were showing some Game of Thrones episodes- so we went to binge on TV in air conditioning. We got microwaveable popcorn!! I didn't even realize how much I missed a bag of popcorn from the microwave. Needless to say, we loved it there. Cool, casual, comfy vibe. The following night they were showing Rocky and the newest Game of Thrones, of course we went.
If you didn't know this about me, I love noodles. Being in SouthEast Asia I have gotten to eat noodle soup for breakfast almost everyday. However, I've found that most places in Cambodia use ramen noodles and not fresh. In Phnom Penh there are a few scattered restaurants advertising fresh noodles. Conor and I had dinner one night at one of these places and I was in heaven! The noodles and dumplings we got were so good, some of the best I've had. We only went once. I can only hope that Vietnam uses fresh noodles.
The main attraction of our visit to Phnom Penh this time was our trip to the Wildlife Rescue Center. There were 7 people in our tour group, great small size. We got picked up in an open top jeep and drove an hour outside of PP. This place is different from a zoo, they take injured or endangered animals in from people and nurse them back to life to replace them back into the wild. If the animal is in endangered it will stay for a breeding program. Although zoo like, the animals all seemed happy and active here. There were wild monkeys running around not enclosed, this was Conor's dream come true. We got to feed and pet so many different animals- gibbons, otters, deer. Our lunch was amazing, our guides (a Cambodian woman and her Dutch husband) really hooked us up. She cooked while we walked around in the morning- making curry, sweet and sour pork, and noodles for us. It was probably one of my best meals in Cambodia. On our way back the jeep stopped working for a bit, minor setback. This was such a great day and tour we chose to do. A last hurrah before leaving for Vietnam.
Leaving Cambodia felt a little sad. We are coming to an end of our trip (although we still have a month left). Off to Vietnam for 30 days, Japan for 3 days, then home (on June 11th).
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