French in the Wat
Phnom Penh, 5th
June 2002 (Part 2)
After a short walk, we soon came across a bank. Ha! Told you so Mr
Moto driver! But, unfortunately, it closed at the ridiculous time of
3pm, and it was now 3:10pm.
5 minutes down the road we came to another bank that appeared to be
still open. We asked the security guy sitting at a small desk by the
gate if it was open. He looked at us & tilted his head, he didn't
seem to understand us, but then he held up a small handmade sign
saying ''This bank does not change foreign currency.'' Ahh, this was
obviously a common occurrence. Something about the situation was
quite amusing and we felt that we needed a photo of the guy holding
up his sign.
Eventually, we found a bank that stayed open until the much more
reasonable time of 4pm and finally managed to get some Cambodian
riel.
Note, that since then we've realised, that it actually works out
slightly more expensive to use local currency than US dollars.
Everywhere advertises prices in $ and if you want to use reil, most
use 4000r=$1. As the banks only give 3900r to $1, it means it costs
more to change $s to riel, then use riel! So, if you come to
Cambodia, it's best to have a good supply of small denomination US
dollars, $1 and $5 are perfect. A small supply, say $5 or $10 worth
of riel is useful for very small purchases and moto rides.
Now stocked with (unnecessary amounts of) local currency, we
continued our exploration of Phnom Penh. The main place we visited
was Wat Phnom, the main Wat in the city. Wat Phnom is quite a small
temple, with a huge stupa situated on top of a small hill. From the
outside, although nice, it is nothing spectacular. However, the
interior is a different story. Inside the wat there are a number of
notable, photo-worthy Buddha images, but much more interesting, were
the paintings on the walls. I've never seen such amazing, and
extensive, art work inside a wat. Every wall, and the ceiling, is
covered in large paintings depicting a number of, what I assume, are
Buddhist stories. Half of the paintings are extremely faded, and the
pictures can barely be seen, but the other half have clearly just
been restored. In fact, at one end of the temple was a set of
scaffolding and a number of open paint pots. Standing next to the
scaffolding, there stood a large Cambodian lady, studying the art
intently. Amy went up to here and asked a question about the
artwork. The lady turned round to look at us, then said ''Parlez-vous
Francais?''. Before I can say my standard ''Un Peu'' (a little), Amy
starts a full blown conversation with her in French! As they chat
away, I could understand a little and managed to extract the gist of
the conversation. The lady was in charge of the restoration project,
and it had already taken many months of hard work, with countless
more to follow.
On the way back to our guesthouse, we decided to pop into the FCC
(Foreign Correspondents Club), a very popular (and expensive)
restaurant/bar with a high reputation and frequented by expats and
travellers with a little too much money.
As it was happy hour, Amy and I decided to have a few drinks there.
The FCC has a great atmosphere and has a nice balcony overlooking
the river. We spent a couple of hours there, chatting and watching
Cambodian life pass by. And a large, grey, elephant.
By the time we reach the guesthouse, it's quite late, so we decided
to have a quiet evening. Like all the guesthouses in Phnom Penh, the
guesthouse staff put on the famous film about Cambodia `The Killing
Fields'. So the last hours of the day were spent eating & watching
the film.
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