Thursday, July 15, 2010

80 km in a tuk-tuk

Today I visited Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh's main pagoda.




People leave all sorts of offerings at the altars, such as this kettle and lantern.


Afterwards, a tuk-tuk driver offered to take me to see a wat on top of a mountain in Oudong, in the Kandal Province outside of Phnom Penh. I couldn't really understand him but I said sure. It took nearly an hour to get there, which is a really long time in the back of a tuk-tuk. Admittedly, I was a little bit uneasy because I had no idea where we were going and the busy Phnom Penh streets turned into rural rice paddies pretty quickly. But once we arrived, it was well worth the visit.

Oudong was the royal capitol of Cambodia until 1866. Today it is best known for its three stupas, built in the 1860s, 1920s and in the 1990s.


On the way to the mountain. The stupas are visible in the background.


One of the three stupas on the mountain. This one was built in 1996 by King Norodom Sihanouk.


These three boys walked up the 500 steps with me and gave me the official history of Oudong in near perfect English.

Feeding the fish in the pond honoring former Queen Sisowath.

Despite dousing myself in high concentrations of DEET, I've still run into some locals, and they've left their clear marks on my arm:

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