Museums: Cambodia

One of the recurring things I did on my holiday was to visit museums. David would have been extremely bored if he'd been compelled to come with me!

I've already written about Tuol Sleng, a place outstanding and memorable for non-conventional reasons. While in Phnom Penh I also visited the National Museum of Cambodia, and Royal Palace compound, including the Silver Pagoda, and Wat Phnom.

The National Museum focusses on the architecture and archaeological history of Cambodia. It includes some of the best examples of Angkorian sculpture, which has been removed from the Siem Reap temples and palaces for safe-keeping. The building itself is made up of a number of pavilions with a peaceful garden courtyard. Generally a quiet and restful place although there was a very large group of Korean students visiting while I was there.

This was my first post-lunch stop on my second - dry - day in Cambodia. In the morning I had taken a tuktuk to Wat Phnom and then started walking through Phnom Penh, basing my route on the walking tour in Lonely Planet. This is easy to do - if rather hot - because Phnom Penh is small geographically. I tried checking out the central market Psar Thmei but much of it was closed for renovations and what there was to see was exceedingly bland. I also found the architecture vastly over-rated, given the guidebook descriptions of it as resembling "a Babylonian ziggurat". Say what?! I think the alternative description of "a concrete custard pie" is much more like it!!

Wat Phnom is the hill-top pagoda from which the city traces it's origins. There has been a pagoda here since the 1300s, although like so much of Cambodia's religious heritage, it suffered badly during the Khmer Rouge government. It's still a community focal point, with many visitors in the park around the hill, hawkers, stalls and many beggars, especially children.

After the National Museum I still had time to tour the Royal Palace compound. This is the official residence of the king so not everything can be visited, but I had the chance to venture inside the Throne Hall and the Silver Pagoda. Photography is not allowed inside either, so the pictorial record is reduced to postcards bought from a disabled street vendor. Printed and copied so many times much of the vibrancy of the colours has been washed out . However, there is still plenty of colour to see of and from the exteriors. The Throne Hall central spire is topped by a most unusual sight, a face. I have no idea if it is a religious or royal representation. Maybe both?



In Siem Reap, aside from the massive museum that is the whole Angkorian collection, I visited the workshop/school of Les Chantiers Ecoles. The school teaches impoverished young people the techniques of carving wood and stone, as well as teaching deaf people silk painting, and a group of young men how to make silver-plated objects. The products are very high-end in quality - with prices to match - but the principle is also to return a fair-value to the craftsmen and to bringing more teenagers into the training program.

During the 2nd day of my journeys to the Angkor Wat temples we also stopped in at the Cambodia Land Mines Museum. The museum was established by Aki Ra, a DIY but expert de-miner. His own history tells you something of the torment and struggle to survive that the older generations of Cambodian people all had to face. He was removed from his family in the early days of the Khmer Rouge and became a soldier for them, before later defecting during the Vietnamese-backed administration. During his life he has had many names, now going by his adopted Japanese name. Initially his career as de-miner - trained by the UN - was outside the work of any agency. Now there is an NGO supporting the museum as well as the education facilities and dormitory that Aki Ra and his family provide for disadvantaged (often extremely impoverished) children in the area. See Ottawa Treaty for some information about the international cooperation needed to ban landmines.