A daytrip from Phnom Penh

[khmen]

When living in downtown Phnom Penh, sometimes a day out of the dust, heat and noise is neccesary to retain your sanity.
I'm sure many of you have been to the Killing fields but there are plenty more sights to see in the vicinity of Phnom Penh, unfortunately tourist information is badly lacking in Cambodia so these places remain relatively unknown and unfrequented by foreigners. The plus side to this is that they tend to be cheap and quiet, except on public holidays when they are mobbed with Khmers.

Anyway, I thought I'd post a couple of threads about trips in the vicinity of Phnom Penh for whom it may concern, starting with a trip to the hilltop temple complex at Oudong.

About 40 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh along National Route 5, a mountain topped with the spires of stupas rears from the plain like a fairytale castle. This is Phnom Oudong, at one time an ancient capital, bombed and desecrated by the Americans and then the Khmer Rouge, but still possessing an eerie beauty that no war has been able to steal from it.
As the capital, it was called Oudong Meanchey Oudong means noble or excellent, and Meanchey means victory.
From 1618 until 1866 it was home to a succession of kings, deposed from the former capital of Longvek by the invading Thais. The mountain itself runs from southeast to northeast, with a low saddle in the middle. Khmers say it has the shape of a Naga the magical multi-headed serpents that guard the Buddha. Along Route 5, signs point the way to silversmithing villages, a legacy of the past when kings and nobility used to come to the Tonle Sap to bathe and the people would offer them delicate gifts fashioned from the precious metal. Turn left at the large billboard, and at the very base of the mountain is a flurry of picnic huts. On weekends, hoards of people descend on the area from Phnom Penh to eat roast chicken, fish and palm fruit in the cool of the thick forest. At the base of the mountain near the path, a memorial containing bones of some of the hundreds of bodies exhumed from a large Khmer Rouge killing field here has been built testament to the area's bloody past. Stairs to the left lead to a huge, shattered statue of Buddha, the feet almost the only part still intact. On the path up the mountain to the right, the stairs climb steeply and a large structure rises on the left. Inside, huge pillars stand underneath sky, and in between their bullet-strafed skeletons, a statue of Buddha sits, only his right arm and shoulder still intact from the ravages of aerial bombings and shelling that shook Oudong from 1970 onwards.
The Khmer Rouge finished the job in 1977, setting explosives inside the temple.

(I ripped that bit from the net cos I couldnt be arsed rewriting it in my own words!)

So, I called up a half Viet/half Khmer girl I know and asked her if she fancied a trip out of town. She did and so off we went up National route 5 on my trusty battered old Honda Dream, passing typical Cambodian traffic such as this:



(Not my photo, was too busy avoiding getting splattered by 4x4s and falling into potholes!)

After about 45 minutes on the dusty, chaotic highway we miraculously arrived intact at Oudong and as is the case with ALL Asian females, ALL of the time she was hungry and decided we would have to eat something before climbing up the mountain. We pulled into some picnic shacks at the base of the mountain and ordered the obligatory rice along with a really, really ugly fish:



In Khmer they are known as "Trey Ros", I think theyre known as Snakehead fish in English. It was actually pretty nice, that is until we'd picked all the meat off the flanks to reveal the fact the fish hadnt even been gutted and all the innards and associated juices were still present. Put me right off but the Khmer girl did'nt seem bothered and had a bit of a pick at them. Bloody Khmers, eat EVERY part of ANYTHING!

So, onto the temple itself. We'd picked up a little crowd of Khmer children eager to follow us around and impart nuggets of information about various things, in surprisingly good English and even more surprisingly the information turned out to be pretty accurate. So me, the girl and the gang of kids began the ascent up the mountain. Due to the previously mentioned American bombing and the Khmer Rouge the hilltop temple complex is a mish-mash of old and new buildings, at the top of the few hundred steps, (sure you can imagine the lady moaning all the way up!) we came to the newer part of the temple first:





There is some amazingly intricate detail on the new part of the temple, though my photography skills don't quite do it justice. Here's one that gives you an idea:



From the top of th temple there are some fantastic views of the surrounding countryside, especially in the wet season when the rice-fields are vibrant green and the lakes full. The four faced spire in this shot is part of the old temple:



This shot is looking back south toward Phnom Penh. Forgot to mention before that the entire area is filled with all sorts of other smaller temples:



This one is looking North, the temple complex pictured is actually the HQ of Cambodian Buddhism, where the Cambodian Chief Abbot resides, forget the actual name of the place:



This photo, while being pretty crap actually shows something quite interesting. It is a house built by the Khmer Rouge commander of the area and the square shaped pool behind it was where people were killed and buried. Their bones have been exhumed and are in a small shrine at the base of the mountain:



Now here are a couple of photos from the older part of the temple:





And one of an old shrine:



By the way, there are also shitloads of monkeys everywhere, couldnt get a better photo of this baby as one took exception to me and started growling and baring its fangs and I got out of there sharpish!:



So, that was the hilltop temple bit, here's a few from the HQ of Buddhism. In some you can see the hilltop temple in the background. Monks n' nuns:









Supposedly there is a mummified monk here somewhere but I didnt see it.
Anyway, it was back to the big smoke after that so thats everything.

In conclusion, if youre getting stressed with the hassles of PP, you could do a lot worse than to take a relaxed day out here, its certainly a nicer day out than the Killing Fields and the breeze at the top of the hill is heaven after the stifling city heat!

[Bangyai]

Very interesting, thanks for posting. Havn't been back to Cambodia for 7 years. Might try to get over next year and see these places for myself.

[khmen]

Cheers, I'll add a couple more places to the thread soon. You'll be really surprised at the change in Cambodia in the last 7 years!

[Bangyai]

Cheers, I'll add a couple more places to the thread soon. You'll be really surprised at the change in Cambodia in the last 7 years!

Yes, I'm sure. I would have been by now but the pound nosedived curtailing a lot of my plans. I think last time I was there I hardly left PP. The furthest I went was probably Martinis.

[sunsetter]

nice thread, cool pics

[Mr Brown]

Good thread, thanks - Cambodias got a place in my heart; always nice to see different things with the details. Hope to see alot more from you

[khmen]

Cheers Sunsetter! So, as promised, here's the second daytrip from Phnom Penh.

As previously mentioned, I'm always up for a day out of the hectic pace of Phnom Penh when I've been there for a while and an old friend from my hometown visiting with his girlfriend provided the perfect excuse. My mate wanted to show his gf a few sights in Phnom Penh, the usual tourist places, in the morning so I met him in the early afternoon to ride to Kien Svay on our scooters.

Kien Svay is actually the name of a district on route 1 about 15km out of Phnom Penh which is notable for a couple of things. The first is the old "floating brothels" which used to be in abundance, there still are a few AFAIK, or at least a few "houses". The second is what basically amounts to a few stilt huts on a river where you can order food and beer, generally just chicken and rice, fish and rice, typical Cambodian country food basically. Sorry, but it's the latter I'm going to post about!

Doesnt sound that exciting but lovely scenery and good country air, you are also more than welcome to smoke a few joints here, if thats what you're into. Here's a couple of photos of the stilt type huts:




I've heard a couple of things about overcharging at these places before but never had any problems personally, then again I speak enough Khmer to ascertain the price beforehand. It might be advisable to go with a local, even to get your English speaking Tuk-Tuk or whatever translate, as English isnt spoken widely here. $3-5 for a whole freshly killed chicken or big fish is about right, $1 for all the rice and thats still being generous. Beers will be about a dollar each but no problem with BYO so just get a load of cans for 2500 riel each before and buy some ice to cool'em there.

When you pull off the highway you pass down a dirt road and turn right to where all the shacks are. People come outside to get you into their shacks straight away but just keep driving for a few minutes to get to the middle of the shacks and pick whoever looks the friendliest, walk through their house and over the rickety bridges to the huts.

View from shack:


It's mostly just people like this going about their daily business but a few people decided to open th shacks for an earner from the city folk nearby, its mostly popular with Khmer families, so as at Oudong avoid weekends and public holidays.

People will also come up on boats when you're in the shacks selling mussels, freshwater shrimp and bananas, all grilled on a charcoal grill on the boat and sold really cheap, if I remember correctly it's four big grilled shrimp for a dollar.

If you want you can take a boattrip up and down the river, usually with a bloke and his son paddling. Its a couple of dollars for a little trip for the whole boat. Heres our driver:




And his son, who looks a bit pissed off:




Well, thats pretty much it. A nice day was had by all so full of food beer and smoke we headed back to town. Its not going to bring the tourists in droves but it's a nice scenic spot not too far from Phnom Penh which makes a nice change of scenery. I'll post later about another couple of spots but for now I'll end with a photo of the crazy rush hour traffic on Monivong Bridge coming back into Phnom Penh:

[Butterfly]

lovely pics, this is SE Asia as it should always stay

sadly Thailand has been developing too fast and this kind of pictures can only be found in very poor SEA countries where history and culture are preserved

[khmen]

I meant to update this thread sooner but I'm in the process of moving house and I appear to have lost a memory card with some photos, GRRRRR! I'll update it ASAP when I find it. Why do they make those things so bloody small?

[Stinky]

Nice picture and intresting thread, thanks for taking the time to post it khmen

[elsen]

Cool thread, nice pics

[Pol the Pot]

Nice pics, Khmen. The trey ros is pla chon. Looks like it's just the head, that threw me off.

[porno frank]

Nice pics of phnom penh. Enjoyed your trip reporting.

[Phuketrichard]

lovely pics, this is SE Asia as it should always stay

sadly Thailand has been developing too fast and this kind of pictures can only be found in very poor SEA countries where history and culture are preserved

What are u talking about???

It is NOT preserved it just as not been developed yet, Big diference


Laos, Cambodia will go the same way as Thailand where culture, at least aorund Wats is preserved.

Dont equate history and culture with poverty

[billy the kid]

those were all very nice pics.
i don't recall seeing anything as beautiful in thailand
i found temples in thailand dripping in something ugly mostly.
the workmanship on the ones you show are like something you would see also in india.
yes beautiful.
jees, those people had it really bad until only recently.
trey ros ,, last image of a fish fighting off a predator.
cheers for them.

[Chuangt2u]

Nice pictures.

[khmen]

Right, so the memory card has gone AWOL so I'll try and salvage the thread with some I've found on the internal memory of my camera. To start off though, I'll add a few more from Oudong as a consolation! (As if anyones that bothered!)

This shot shows a pond with the main Viharn in the background.


And this one is from the steps of the Viharn, looking back to the direction of the previous photo. The statue in the center of the pond is a woman with long hair and a crocodile at it's feet. It's some Cambodian legend but I cant remember what it symbolises now!


Some monks monking about the place:


And these last two shots show an unfinished reclining Buddha, I reckon it'll look really nice when it's decorated and completed:




More shortly........(Damn, this thread has been f[at]$*ed right up!)

[khmen]

OK, so the next place I was going to add to the thread was Tonle Bati, I've only got a couple of photos retrieved from the camera so I'll do the best I can!

Tonle Bati is a huge lake about 40 kms south-west of Phnom Penh. It is a beautiful scenic spot surrounded by rice fields and has a couple of hilltop temples similar to Oudong in the vicinity. There is a similar set up to Kien Svay here, with stilted picnic huts into the lake with similar food and a beautiful Angkorean era temple called Ta Phrom, not to be confused with the one at Angkor itself. As with the other two places, avoid at weekends and Buddhist holidays.

Here's some photo of Ta Phrom temple.(Not my photos, lost the temple ones!)




Obviously its just a minor temple and cant compare to the great ruins at Angkor itself but it's still worth a trip to see, especially if you havent yet visited Angkor.

And heres the few I could find of my own of the stilted picnic huts:

(Note the curtains on the shacks, the girl Iwas with said they were there for the purposes of "privacy", read into that what you will!





Here's one of an old Khmer Grandma who was selling cockles and fuit from her boat. We invited her to sit for a while and I practised my Khmer with her, which she found hilarious coming from a foreigner!


Sorry but thats it for my photo's from there, shit I know but what can I do?

I'll end this section with some better photos of the lake:





More to come........

[khmen]

OK, so I was going to add a couple more places within an hour or so of Phnom Penh but all the photos were on the lost card so I'm going to stretch it a bit and include a trip to Kompong Cham, about 120km's from Phnom Penh, so about 2 hours driving.

Kompong Cham is a provincial capital on the banks of the Mekong, and as it's name suggests there are many Cham Muslim communities living in the vicinity. I woke up one day fancying a day out and as Icouldnt rope anyone in to join me looked at my map of Cambodia and picked Kompong Cham, mounted the steed and left at about 9 am. In all honesty there is'nt a great deal to see or do in the town except relax, enjoy the quiet provincial atmosphere and visit a couple of sights around the outskirts. Its basically real rural Cambodia as soon as youre outside the town, as in dirt roads, rice drying in the sun and stilt huts with no electric and running water.

Anyway, I havent got many worthwhile shots of the town itself so I'll post a few from a rural hilltop temple about 15kms north of the town itself, called Wat Hanchey. The drive to this temple is fantastic, it follows the course of the Mekong along a dirt road and the scenes of rice fields on the left and the mighty Mekong on the right along with the rural people going about their business is fantastically idyllic. Enjoyed the ride too much to be stopping taking photo's though so you'll just have to imagine it or do it yourself! Sometimes I just enjoy the moment and cant be arsed spoiling it taking photo's, life is not to be lived through a viewfinder!

Anyways, onto the temple itself. I'ts situated on a hill at a curve in the Mekong so the views of the great river are fantastic. Once again, my photography skills dont do the subject justice but there you go!

Views over the Mekong:








And here's a couple of the rather oddly styled temple buildings:






That's pretty much it, aside from mentioning that if you exit the temple and follow the "road" round to the left around the hill for a couple of minutes there is a shrine on the hillside with beautifully rendered murals of Buddha, especially considering it is basically what amounts to a bus shelter in the boondocks of Cambodia!



Also, for the adventurous, if you follow the road a bit further you get to REAL rural Cambodia, where there is no traffic apart from ox-carts and pushbikes. My bike wasnt up to it so I didnt go that far but I will one day.
I have also heard of a dirt road that follows the course of the Mekong the whole 120kms from Phnom Penh to Kompomg Cham so next time I'm going to ride that instead of the highway, stay tuned!

Thats it for today though, I've got a really nice set of photo's to end the thread with at some time next week, and as the thread has gone off the rails anyway I'm going to include a really nice daytrip from Sihanoukville.....Laters

[Pol the Pot]

Go in the dry season and check out the bamboo bridge that miraculously appears. Capable of carrying trucks.

[genghis61]

re your op on the Oudong temples, I mountainbiked there from PP on Friday, me and a guide from Vicious Cycles (Grasshopper Tours) - cost me $44 for the day for guide and a near-new Giant mountainbike, followed old rail lines, through farms/ricefields, it is definitely the 'long way' to get there as our trip was 65km (40ish by road) but if you're energetic I'd recommend the bike ride it's a great way to see the countryside. The 500 or so steps at the end were a shock to the legs though happy to say i out-ran my guide to the top.

took a day off for sightseeing then Sunday out again on the bike, this time across Tonle Sap river to the island for a more relaxed ride, then across the Mekong for a few more kms, left at 8am back for lunch at 1pm.

Will add some pics when I get home.

[khmen]

Fair play mate, that sounds like a nicer way to get there, the highway isnt exactly an enjoyable ride! I'll have to give that a go at some point, cheers for the heads up!

[genghis61]

some pics from the first of two cycle trips I did from Phnom Penh this month


first need a bike; I'm a road cyclist and hadn't thought about how much slower mtbs are, following old rail lines, crossing rice fields through small villages between PP and Oudong, 69km which is a lot longer than direct by road, but for me far more enjoyable


no idea what this place is called, this building one of many within the grounds



after the bike ride there's a nice 510 step climb for views of the surrounding countryside


Oudong was once the capital city - 1618 to 1866 - on the top are three stupas for former kings. The first one houses the remains of King Soryopor. The second one is inhabited by the corpse of King Norodom’s father King Ang Duong with four bayon style faces at the top. South again lies Chedi Mouk Pruhm, a bland concrete building holding the remains of King Monivong.

Place I did ride with is Grasshopper Adventures US $44 for the day incl lunch, fruit and water along the way. Just me and the guide they were happy to run for just the one customer.

[genghis61]

the second bike trip was far more relaxed; four customers and a slower pace. The Oudong one I couldn't resist turning it into a race and we were over an hour ahead of schedule. This time I had the company of a mother/son from Seattle and a woman from Vancouver, none of whom were particularly fit and content to take in the scenery


Tour began at the bike shop, short ride to a ferry and across the Tonle Sap river, maybe an hour there including a stop at a riverside Chinese temple, mostly on small trails along the riverbank


What surprised me was how quickly the urban PP disappears and rural life begins, across the river and quickly into a basic farming/rural lifestyle


The ferry trips were 10-20min each, often shared with the local wildlife, crossings were Tonle Sap then Mekong, then Mekong directly back to PP


Kids at the swimming pool


over-size dragon boats - these are huge - used in annual competitions

[khmen]

Nice pics mate, definitely going to try the alternate route next time. Dont suppose youve got a route map? If not I'll just wing it and get lost, I love doing that anyway, Ive stumbled across loads of interesting places that way!

Agree on the transition from city to country from Phnom Penh though, I love it! So easy to get out of the chaos within ten minutes and be sat on a riverbank cracking open a cold one!