Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia. It's located in the very hearth of the country and it's sort of a crossroads of the ways to all parts of Cambodia. It was impossible to avoid visiting it. The river flowing through is Mekong which forms a massive delta in Vietnam. The river is huge, but the colour is not inviting for swimming.
We entered Cambodia from Vietnam and against the expectations found a completely different world on the other side of the national border. First we wanted to exchange some american dollars but soon realized it's not neccessary. Even though they have their own currency - riels, all prices in stores, restaurants, even on the markets are in dollars. Riels are used only as a change, because they don't have dollar coins. Unfortunatelly because of that, the prices are higher than in Vietnam. In most cases they are rounded to $1.
Second difference with comparison with Vietnam are tuk-tuks. Those in Cambodia I would describe as taxi drivers on motorcycles wih a trailer. Here is still a lot of motorcycls on the streets, but among them you can find a lot of cars. Another difference are beggars whom we almost haven't see in eastern neighbour.
Cambodia was all the time in a state of civil war from the end of 60s until the beginning of 90s. There was a period of "peace" when the country was under control of Khmer Rouge. But those managed to perform a genocide on their own nation and excute everyone who didn't speak in local language, was wearing a glasses or was just crying for dead loved ones. Khmer is a name for a citizen of Cambodia.
Something more than twenty years ago devastated Cambodia was taken over by UN. Today it's a kingdom (on photo below left you can see a royal palace in the background.) They have a king and government, but all this is just a cover. All directives comes from US and Europe. Cambodian economy is non-existent. On the shelves of stores you can't find one local product. On every corner there is some american school.
90% of white people work in NGOs, which unfortunatelly bring a western way of life in a country with a very rich local culture. Sometimes you're not sure any more whether you're in USA or Europe. Even licence plates remind of american style. Luckily there are still some temples which proves that you're actually still in Asia :)
Otherwise Phnom Penh looks very nice. At least walking the major streets. But quickly you can end up in some not so respectful...
And when we were randomly vandering around the city we suddenly stoped in front of a sign with the name of a street. We were standing on Rue Josep Broz Tito, which is located just opposite to Rue Yugoslavie :D
The navigation in Phnom Penh is very simple. The streets are named by numbers (again remainds a bit to New York.) Only the most important ones have word names. And even at those you can find a corresponding number in brackets.
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