Cultural wonders? or shopping?

so today got off to a late start after laura and i failed to click that the total darkness in our room was not indicative of it being the middle of the night, but rather indicative of us having a room without windows. anyway, it was probably worth it as i think we both had the most solid 12 hours sleep we've had since leaving australia (and for me at least probably for the last month or so). so we breakfasted on croissants (the french are good for something) before heading off about 11.30 to see the royal palace and the national museum. on coming to the national museum we became somewhat confused by the total lack of entrances that appeared to be in operation... consulting my trusty if somewhat dated lonely planet i discovered the reason for our distress - apparenlty 11 til 2.30 is lunch time. hmmm. at both the palace and museum. double hmm. what were we to do?? the remaining cultural hot spots (the killing fields and s21 musuem) had been our plan for tomorrow, with a slightly earlier start... our only remaining option was to head out to the russian market and do a spot of shopping. such a tragedy. so we got ourselves a friendly tuk tuk driver, who attempted to converse with us whilst driving, which was somewhat concerning... we made it to the markets unscathed, and now our driver proceeded to try and sell us further services - he would wait for us, 1 hr to 2hr... no no, we didnt know what our plans were.... tomorrow he would take us to the killing fields, to s 21, all day driver us around... well, maybe that would be good... he could pick us up from the hotel at 10am... that done and with further assurances that we did not want him to wait for us now, out we hopped and began to explore the market... having recently managed to lose my travel alarm, which had been our only clock, watches seemed like a sensible purchase. i had purchased a cheap digital watch early on in siem reap, but it broke within 12 hrs of the purchase, so i'd perservered without... so now i thought to myself, this time i'll by *quality* get me something that will last. And lo and behold if i dont soon find myself in front of a display of the best in quality time pieces, Rolexes. So now i have myself a fine piece of craftsmanship, that is bound to out last me, and all for the amazing low price of $10. Laura also purchased a watch, hers can tell two different times at once, and while it claims to be a casio, i personally suspect its a cheap ripoff... i dont know why she didnt get a genuine rolex like me.

we then found a nice little NGO shop that was all about the good causes, and thus justified stocking up on their wares.... finally reappearing from the markets after watching a two year old pee into a crack in the walk way that was apparently a gutter, which is apparently the same as a toilet, we decided to tuktuk it back to the hotel to unload our purchases before heading off to the cultural wonders...
so we climed aboard, and off we went..../
as we turned the corner and came back around to the side of the market we had first entered, who should start waving and yelling but our original tuk tuk driver who'd got us there... well, we told ourselves we'd told him not to wait, and to be honest we were so lost when we came out of the market we couldnt have found him anyway... so on we go, when shortly after, the original tuktuk driver pulls up along side of us, tells our current driver to pull over, explains to us that theyre "friends", pays off our current and somewhat bemused driver, and gets us to get out and change into his tuk tuk.... and we continue back to our hotel... where he attempts to charge us more than the original driver had quoted us...

all in all quite an experience.

and we did make it to the national museum (where another small child peed into a hedge) and then on to the palace, where we saw the much talked about "silver pagoda". Well, its so called because its floor is tiled with silver tiles. Let me just say that the silver tiles were being held together with packaging tape, in much the same way you'd stick down dodgy old lino.

lauras theory is that after angkor wat its bound to be hard to impress us... i suspect that i'm just not really interested in temples and the like to begin with...

another pleasant dinner and it appears we're headed for another early night.

they're are a lot of beggars in phnom penh, something we didnt really see in siem reap, its tragic and heart breaking and incredibly difficult to know what to do about. i'd thought that the selling postcards and guidebooks was more or less equivalent to begging, but now i see how wrong i was.

i feel like i could potentially do something useful here. my old plans of starting up a sweatshop and teaching locals how to sew and patternmake keep flooding back to me... but at the same time, i feel like its such a wretchedly colonial attitude to imagine that these people need me. sure they might need my money, but do i really have skills that couldnt be found here? maybe, it might be possible - tailoring isnt everywhere like vietnam, although basic sewing is... the more complex methods and high end finishes might be useful for people to learn... and a western sense of fashion might be useful is coming up with some new products that were a little more different and little less same same....

ah well, things to ponder into the future.

i cant believe they hung saddam hussein! as if world news continues to break when i'm not paying attention!!