Tag Archives: Phnom Penh

Cambodia – Oudong picnic spot

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This may be a case of saving the best for last. Or maybe it was simply a coincidence that Oudong was the last place we visited in Cambodia.

Either way, here at the foot of the mountain, vendors from the local villages gather to sell all sorts of picnic food to the city folk who come to the mountain on weekends to “get away from it all” and relax.

Places along the road rented comfortable (well, if you’re Cambodian, I guess) resting places with clean mats and hammocks where visitors can relax after climbing the mountain and eating their fill of the fresh food.

A very long line of vendors–two or three rows deep in places and maybe a couple of football fields long–was getting ready for the lunchtime crowd as we came through.

  

The variety of food was incredible. Just above, for example, you see a tempting plate of battered fried ants. This was a food people were reduced to during the terrible years of starvation under the Khmer Rouge, and they discovered they were quite good. Fried ants, that is, not the Khmer Rouge. And so fried ants continue to be a popular snack food today.

Other tempting dishes included skewers of grilled frogs, grilled fish, some kind of custard, fried soft-shell crabs, olives, grilled chicken and <um, something>, some kind of small bird being defeathered in advance of grilling, and to go with it all, a nice salad with basil and hot peppers.

       

The line of vendors was endless, and the variety of food mind-boggling. Here we have the eggs of some kind of small bird and a spicy bean salad, grilled <um, something>, fried ants prepared with hot peppers, snails, grilled turtles, and salad.

     

Everyone here was getting ready for the lunchtime crowd.

   

Our one regret is that we didn’t eat any of this. The Beth Israel Hospital Travel Clinic had cautioned us too severely. But if I had known I was already sick, for sure I should have done it.

Spicy fried ants with mystery-stuffed grilled banana-leaf packets, yum!

Cambodia – Oudong region

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A number of new temples and monasteries have sprung up (or been rebuilt) in the vicinity of Oudong Mountain. We visited several. Alas, I don’t know the name of this temple. I can say only that it is fairly new and beautifully decorated, inside and out. The railings of the stairways and terraces are all seven-headed nagas (serpents), and lions guard the way.

  Inside, the temple is high and spacious. A large Buddha sitting under his Bo-tree dominates the room. His electric halo and fingers touching the ground show that he has achieved enlightenment.

 

 

The walls and ceilings are covered with paintings detailing the various incarnated lives of the Buddha.

 

 

Nearby a golden statue of the meditating Buddha protected by the king of nagas dominates a serene garden.

 

Cambodia – Oudong Mountain

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Oudong Mountain is a popular weekend-morning destination for Cambodians as well as tourists. The ride from Phnom Penh takes about three quarters of an hour through the capital city’s suburbs and out into the countryside. Oudong Mountain first appears as a distant vision across the rice paddies.

Oudong was the capital of Cambodia from 1618 to 1866, when the capital was moved to Phnom Penh. There was much damage to the region in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge. Now, new structures and old intermingle peacefully. The climb to the top involves more than five hundred stairs whose railings are topped with resplendent enlightened Buddhas. A pool that graces one of the stairway landings is occupied by a troupe of monkeys.

  

 

The views from the terrace of the newest stupa are stunning, as are the terrace and the stupa itself.

 

 

The older stupas on the mountaintop blend ancient art with modern worship.

   

 

One of these older stupas had a small temple inside, where traditionally worshippers bring Buddha statues.

 

 

 

Cambodia – Wat Phnom

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Phnom Penh is the only city I know of that was founded by a woman. The way the story goes, in the mid-fourteenth century Lady Penh (Daun Penh) pulled a floating tree out of the river, and in it she found four bronze buddhas. Being a spiritual person, she knew what she had to do. On the spot where she found the tree, she built up a hill (phnom) and on it she built a temple (wat) to house the four buddhas. The place became a holy place of pilgrimage, and after Lady Penh’s death a small shrine was built to her.

And so “Phnom Penh” means Lady Penh’s Hill, and the hill itself is at the center of the city.

The main stupa on the hill contains the remains of the king Ponhea Yat who made the city his capital early in the fifteenth century, along with many buddha statues and offerings. The current building dates only from the early twentieth century.

 

On the grounds outside the stupa are many interesting artifacts. For example, here is a fine large ceremonial drum, housed in its own shelter. The painting on the drum is of a lunar eclipse–during which the demon Rahu is swallowing the moon.

 

A number of interesting spirit-houses dot the grounds.

 

There is still a small shrine to Lady Penh. Even after all these centuries, she is believed to have a special ability to grant wishes, and is especially helpful to women.

Lady Penh has two electric halos, and she is surrounded by gifts that her worshippers have given her. Notice the tray of nail polish bottles to her left, for example–a fitting gift from one woman to another. Lady Penh is extremely popular, and her shrine is always surrounded by petitioners. I can understand why. Don’t you think she looks kindly? Almost grandmotherly, with those glasses.

Er…wait. Daum Penh lived in the fourteenth century. Glasses??? Perhaps they were a gift from someone hoping they would help her to better see her admirers.

 

Cambodia – Phnom Penh’s Central Market

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The market’s Khmer name, Phsar Thmei, literally means “New Market.” But we call it “Central Market” in English. I don’t know, but I imagine I know, why: Unlike any other market we’ve visited, this one has a clear and unmistakeable center.

Built in 1935 in an art-deco style, the market comprises four wings around a central domed area. Around the market and its wings, ancillary vendors have set up additional stalls, as such vendors will.

The high-value merchandise is located under the central dome, attractively displayed in brightly lit cases.

   

We exited through the “food court,” an area of fast-food merchants, all busy preparing for the lunchtime rush.

   

Yes, that’s a durian that the man is cutting up, the fruit that is famous for a flavor that people who like it adore and for an odor that everyone else can’t stand. It turns out that *fresh* durians like this one don’t smell. I regret not having tasted it.

My favorite part of the market was the part we saw last. Flowers!

 

Cambodia – Phnom Penh’s Russian Market

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Dan and I are market junkies. We don’t buy very much. Well, maybe a few silk scarves and wooden cow bells, that sort of thing, only a small smattering of the goods available. Mostly we’re there to absorb the patterns and rhythms of the place. The visual candy. And to experience each market’s unique character.

And so…allow me to present the Russian Market in Phnom Penh, so named in the 1980s when the Russians were the only tourists in town, and this is where they went to find cheap local goods to ship home. And it’s still probably the best place for that kind of thing today, as well as every other kind of merchandise under the sun. And as rich in visual candy as they come.

Here is a somewhat random walk through the market, in one side, through the food court in the middle, and out the other side.