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Where the Mekong and Tonle Sap
Rivers Meet
With the aid of his French 'protectors', King Norodom
moved his capital from Udong to the sleepy riverside town of Phnom
Penh in 1866. Though having served as the country's capital in 1434
- three years after the fall of Angkor - attempts to rekindle the
former Khmer empire only led to the city's destruction by the Siamese
in 1473. So it was that French finance and technical know-how were
behind the building of the country's new capital. Many of the Cambodian
styled temples and buildings were the work of the French and even
King Norodom's Royal Palace was constructed to French design - atop
the site of a former, 19th-century, citadel.
Despite building one of the most colonial of French-colonial
capitals - with its trademark wide boulevards, mansions and shophouses,
France had very little interest in developing Cambodia, other than
as a potential, but doomed, thoroughfare, via the Mekong River to
China. With their final withdrawal in 1953, Cambodia achieved an
independence that it had not known for nearly five hundred years.
It was to last less than two decades.
During this time, however, the city prospered with
up to two-thirds of the 600,000 population in 1970 consisting of
Chinese merchants and Vietnamese workers. But, five years later,
the city was almost deserted; it's inhabitants driven into the countryside
by the Khmer Rouge. Phnom Penh was left to rot. By the time UNTAC
forces arrived in 1992 - after five years of Khmer Rouge decimation,
a decade of Vietnamese occupation and several years of civil war
- they found a bedraggled city, bowing under the pressure from the
influx of nearly a million people, and its once-grand plumbing system
in pieces.
 Since
then, the Royal Palace, the national museum and Royal Hotel have
all undergone substantial renovation, while the National Bank -
blown up by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 - was rebuilt on the same site
in the late 80s. With the help of a great deal of foreign aid and
private investment - and if developers can be kept under control
- there is every chance that the capital of the once-more independent
Cambodia will regain its former beauty.
  Tuol
Sleng Museum - Originally built as a secondary school named
Tuol Svay Prey High School in 1960, during the reign of Preah Batnorodom
Sihanouk. The Khmer Rouge converted this into a torture and interrogation
centre to extract 'confessions' of anti-government sentiment. Many
victims were women and children incarcerated along with the 'suspected'
father. Documents recovered indicate that over 17,000 persons had
been imprisoned there between1975 and 1978, only seven of whom are
known to have survived. The others, once the 'confession' had been
extracted under torture, were transported to Choeung Ek for execution.
Records show that the highest figure was on 27 May 1978, when 582
persons were sent to their death. The museum was established in
1979 after the Vietnamese invasion, and the Khmer Rouge's meticulous
photographic records of their victims are exhibited as tragic testimony
to those who suffered and died in their hands.
 Choeung
Ek Execution Area - 15km southwest of the city centre is one
of the many sites of Khmer Rouge mass executions. The exhumed skulls
of some 8,000 souls, arranged by sex and age, are displayed behind
glass panels in the Memorial Stupa, which was erected in 1988. Although
some were killed and buried at Toul Sleng, most victims were driven
out to Choeung Ek at night by truck. Some were made to dig their
own graves before being clubbed to death with any heavy instrument
available. In addition to those exhumed, another 43 pits have been
left undisturbed and the final shocking total can only be guessed.
The pleasant orchard setting does little to dispel the horror engendered
by this grim sight, as Choeung Ek is just one of thousands of recorded
mass grave sites throughout the country, and is by no means, the
largest. On May 9th each year a memorial service is conducted at
the stupa, in memory of the estimated 1.7 million people who died
during the genocide.
Royal
Palace & Silver Pagoda - Built in 1866, the site contains various
buildings of interest, including the Khmer-style Throne Hall, now
used for special ceremonial occasions. South of the Throne Hall
are the Royal Treasury and the Villa of Napoleon III, built in Egypt
in 1866, for the opening of the Suez Canal, and was later presented
to the Cambodian king as a gift. The famous Silver Pagoda, originally
constructed of wood in 1866, was expanded in 1962 by King Sihanouk
who had the floor inlaid with 5,329 solid silver tiles, hence its
name. The most revered image is the Emerald Buddha, made of Baccarat
crystal and dating back to the 17th century. Behind it, another
Buddha statue was cast in 1906, utilizing 90 kg of gold, and decorated
with 9,584 diamonds. Cabinets along the perimeter contain gifts
presented to royalty and dignitaries. Along the inside of the recently
restored 600-metre external wall is a colorful mural depicting scenes
from the Reamker, the Khmer version of the Ramayana.
National
Museum of Arts - North of the palace grounds, the building was
designed in Khmer-style, in 1920, by a French architect, and contains
important artifacts and sculptures from the Angkor era and earlier.
Wat
Ounalom - Built in 1443 to enshrine a sacred hair of the Buddha,
and located north of the National Museum of Arts, this temple is
considered the seat of Cambodian Buddhism. When the Khmer Rouge
evacuated Phnom Penh in 1975, they vandalized the building and murdered
the Abbot along with many of the 500 monks who lived there.
Wat
Phnom - On a hill to the north of the city, and restored or
reconstructed in 1434, 1806, 1894 and 1926, Wat Phnom is regularly
used for prayer, small offerings, and meditation.
Oudong
- Approximately 40km from Phnom Penh, and located on a hill overlooking
vast plains, this site is famous for the burial chedis of the Khmer
kings.
Phnom
Tamao Zoo - This recently opened zoo and wildlife rescue centre,
40km outside the city, was set up to preserve and rescue rare and
endangered local wildlife including tiger, lion, deer, bear, peacock,
heron, crocodile and turtle. Eighty hectares of the total area have
been established as a national zoo and up to 1,200 hectares have
been reserved for its future extension and development.
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